


with pride, with legacy

by evocates



Series: a guide on (dis)honouring your deities [3]
Category: Red Cliff, Sān guó yǎn yì | Romance of the Three Kingdoms - All Media Types, 關雲長ㅣThe Lost Bladesman (2011)
Genre: (Canon Being ROTK), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Changes in Anatomy Due to ABO 'verse, Chinese Culture, Chinese History - Freeform, Class Issues, F/F, Gender Roles, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-08 14:56:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 65,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12256629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evocates/pseuds/evocates
Summary: Kongming looked at her and did not love her, but he respected her enough that he would rather not see her bruised and broken. Though nothing she would ever say would change his mind regarding any of his beliefs and opinions, he respected her enough to understand that she had wishes and desires and thoughts of her own, all of which had nothing to do with him. He looked at her like she was a person, wholly within herself.What luck Yueying had, to have found Kongming; to have found a man who looked at her and did not mind that she did not exist merely to serve him.Yueying had been taught: she was born with wrists too weak for swords and a mind suited only for the cleverness of wives, and she should never strive for anything more. Kongming knew: without frame and without brace, the spine would only break in a coming storm.Subtitled: “A Treatise on the Cages Made from Confucian Gender and Class Roles, With Special Emphasis on Privilege.”Sequel to bothlike sleeves, like limbsandfor husband, for king.Please read those first, or the plot won’t make much sense. The series link is below.Complete.





	1. Prologue: 犹悔迟, “to regret the delay (in learning)”

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chuchisushi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chuchisushi/gifts), [jonphaedrus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/gifts), [28ghosts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/28ghosts/gifts), [vesperify](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vesperify/gifts).



> Characterisations and the faces of the actors are all listed in the series notes. Honestly, I’m just writing fic for _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_ and cribbing characterisations and plot details from every adaptation I can get my hands on. Also, please note that this series has _Wei_ as the protagonists. Though the main characters here are from Shu, **_this is not about how awesome Shu is._** _Romance of the Three Kingdoms ****_use Shu as an example of ideals in Chinese culture, and this fic is about how utterly _fucked up_ those ideals are. Turn back if you don’t want to read about how people of Shu are abusive bastards.
> 
> Worldbuilding still based on chuchisushi’s ideas about ABO. Salient points regarding the differences between men and women, with particular attention paid to betas since Kongming is a male beta and Yueying is a female one:  
> 1) The most notable differences between the sexes is in what is known in the ABO world as tertiary sexual characteristics: breasts, hips, Adam’s apple, and so on. (We call those _secondary_ sexual characteristics.) Like in the real world, women have breasts and wider hips, less hair, and no Adam’s apple.  
>  2) Biologically, the differences for this are because men and women are adapted for different purposes: women survive longer, are more adaptable to changes, and have a higher pain tolerance; men have a higher metabolism and hence need more food and have greater bursts of energy. In essential terms: women survive longer in famines, but men survive better in wars. This applies across the board with regards to alphas, betas, and omegas.  
> 3) As the result of ABO, primary and secondary sexual characteristics both don’t differ that much. Beta women and beta men both have vaginas and cocks and balls. During puberty, male betas’ balls drop (see _like sleeves, like limbs_ for Yunchang being indisputably an omega – he has no balls) while female betas have their clitorises develop into full penises.  
>  4) Due to the fact that humans like making societies and societies are dependent on hierarchies, the fact remains that most male betas are pressured into becoming husbands, while most female betas are pressured into becoming wives.
> 
> Chapter titles are still directly lifted from the 三字经, the three-character classic. 
> 
> Beta’d by [chuchisushi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chuchisushi/pseuds/chuchisushi), who saved this fic from being sixty thousand words of incomprehensible and overly-referential rambling focused on a character that, essentially, “floats around, wailing.” A lot of the quality of this draft is due to her sitting me down and telling me exactly what I have done wrong so that I can rewrite at least half of it. As a result, this fic is dedicated to her. It is also gifted to [jonphaedrus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus), [28ghosts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/28ghosts), and [vesperify](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vesperify), who prompted me through fightbackfic. Beta’d also by [kikibug13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13), who cleaned up the rest of my mistakes.
> 
>  **Warnings:** The previous parts of this series have been about a very idealised version of Wei, in which the horrors of ancient China have been sanitised. That’s not the case here; ancient China was a pretty terrible place to live, especially during this period of civil war, and doubly so for women. **_Please take note of the warnings above each chapter_. **
> 
> Also, please note the “major character death” warning: every character who doesn’t appear in the very first scene will end up dead by the end of the fic. 
> 
> Courtesy names: 诸葛亮 Zhuge Liang’s is 孔明 Kongming, 赵云 Zhao Yun’s is 子龙 Zilong, 周瑜 Zhou Yu’s is 公瑾 Gongjin, and 张飞 Zhang Fei’s is 义德 Yide. Huang Yueying’s name is written 黄月英 in Chinese (“yellow,” a common Chinese surname, “moon” and “flower”.) She has no courtesy name because she is a female beta.

_The thirteenth year of the Cao Dynasty, early summer_  
_Xu, the Kingdom of Wei_  


When Qilan arrived, the Emperor of Wei was beset by children.

Two of them – his three-year-old sons Cao Shuo and Cao Ju – were sitting on his arms while their younger cousins and playmates – Xiahou Hu and Xiahou Mao, also twins, the sons of the Lord Chancellor and the Grand Marshal – flopped around, beating on his thighs. The Emperor made exaggerated grimaces and aborted flailing that made the children laugh. Or, Qilan corrected herself, made the _younger_ children laugh; Cao Jie, the Honourable Crown Princess, was seated on the side with her legs folded and her head resting on a fist, sighing at what she clearly thought was her father’s undignified behaviour.

Soft whispers filled the silence of the clearing in-between the children’s laughter. Qilan slid her eyes to the side, and could not help but smile when she took in the sight of Grand Marshal Xiahou – his position as the chief of the armies no longer shared with the Empress, and earned by merit, though the fact that the Empress now had to take on the Lord Chancellor’s duties had hastened the process – leaning against the tree with Lord Zhang curled up against him. Their hands were joined, resting on top of the heavy swell of the Lord Chancellor’s belly, the curve higher and fuller than it had been when he had carried the twins. Qilan had heard whispered rumours amongst the other handmaidens that the Lord Chancellor was surely with a set of triplets this time; she could not help but worry over the dark circles etched so deeply beneath his lids though she knew there was little he would allow her to do about them.

(She had heard, too, that Hua Tuo, Royal Physician of Wei, had decreed that the Lord Chancellor not be allowed out of bed. Then again, given how he was practically sprawled on top of his husband, Qilan supposed that Grand Marshal Xiahou served well enough as a portable bed.)

Sounds of stone scraping over steel caught her attention. Her er-ge was seated on top of a tree stump at the very back of the tableau, legs tucked away to the side with his infamous glaive laid upon his lap. The stains on his fingertips showed that he had already finished polishing the cedar staff and had now moved on to sharpening the blade with his whetstone. He caught her gaze when she looked at him, and tilted his head in invitation.

Qilan took care to keep her footsteps silent as she approached him, sinking on her knees. “This lowly sister pays her respects to er-ge,” she greeted quietly.

“Sao-zi,” er-ge returned. He made one last slide of stone over steel before he lifted the glaive and put it away. “I have been thinking about what to say to you so you might change your mind, but I couldn’t find anything that might actually work.” He lifted his eyes, and a small smile curved the corners of his mouth. “That, I think, is a good sign.”

“If er-ge does not want Qilan to leave, then Qilan will stay,” she replied, meeting his gaze through the shield of her lowered lashes. “But she requests to know the reason.”

“The children will miss you,” er-ge replied promptly. His smile widened, showing not just teeth but a hint of gums as well. It was bright, so much brighter than it used to be years ago when she first saw him again in their shared hometown, years after he first left. But little else had changed: the mirth that curved his mouth touched the corner of his eyes, creasing the tiny lines there; nothing else showed as proof for the years that had passed and the transformations in his life he had endured.

From a dutiful cart-driving farmer’s son to a General under the service of a royal uncle to the Empress of the Kingdom that seemed poised to unify the lands under the skies, Guan Yunchang had looked almost exactly the same. 

Shaking herself out of the reverie of memories and ensuring remembrance, Qilan huffed out a quiet sigh. “They are very young, and they will forget me soon,” she corrected. Her eyes glanced towards the little princes. They were now trying to wrestle their father, beating on his shoulders with their tiny fists while he tickled them in return. “You have plenty of handmaidens who are all-too-willing to distract them if they ever spare a thought for me.” 

The weight of the thought sent a sigh of relief through her. When she met er-ge’s eyes again, she saw in the bright shadows that he understood. To be remembered, to be missed, was a burden that Qilan had never wanted to place upon her own shoulders. Though she understood why so many desired for a legacy, she had seen, too, how carrying the ideals and expectations of others wrapped chains around one’s feet until walking became impossible.

Four shrieks rang out into the air. As the Lord Chancellor cracked open one eye, Qilan saw the four young boys roll onto the grass face-first as the Emperor stood. Even covered in grass stains with a stalk sticking straight out of his hair, he still looked regal as he shooed his cousin’s children over to their parents and scooped up his own.

As he walked over, Qilan lowered her head again. But it still took effort to not giggle at the Crown Princess’s offended face when her father dumped her brothers in her lap, encouraging them to climb all over her to amuse themselves. She bit her lip hard as the Emperor approached his wife, and all her er-ge did in response was to stare flatly at him before plucking that stubborn stalk of grass from his hair.

“I still don’t understand why neither of you would accept a letter of recommendation,” the Emperor said. He had a tendency, she noted again, to start speaking as if they were already in the middle of a conversation. “Even if you would not take one from any of us here, there must be someone whose word is trusted and who will be useful to you.”

He swept his robes aside as he dropped once more down to the grass, sprawling half against the Empress. Er-ge leaned against him, the long tail of his hair slipping over the Emperor’s shoulder. The light-swallowing darkness of the strands, without a single thread of white to stain it, set alight the grey that had almost entirely devoured the Emperor’s temples. 

Qilan slowly shook her head. “His Majesty is very kind,” she said, carefully calculating her words. Though he was now used to her presence within his palace, neither of them had forgotten the circumstances of their first meetings, and the words that had been exchanged then. _Ceramic,_ the Emperor had named her then, and Qilan still would not disagree with his judgment. “But neither Yueying nor I are looking for a government post, and those are all recommendation letters will be useful for.”

“You’ll need one if you desire to work for some high-born wife,” the Emperor pointed out. He scratched at his neat beard, tilting his head for a moment. “Though a letter from anyone here will scare your potential employer into hiring you instead of actually seeing your merits.”

Lifting her sleeve to hide the twitching of her lips, Qilan nodded. Her er-ge was laughing, low chuckles that ghosted over his husband’s hair as the Emperor turned up towards him with a quiet smirk. Qilan lowered her eyes, giving the two of them some semblance of privacy as their foreheads touched and their breaths ghosted across each other’s lips.

Once, she had told her er-ge to stay with this Alpha for the sake of having some sort of power, some kind of control. Now she knew her prophecy had come true – the Empress of Wei was no less than its Emperor when it came to matters of governance – but here was something she never thought possible: the sweet-softness of er-ge’s smile as he stroked his knuckles over the Emperor’s cheeks; the huffing snickers at the brush of their noses; the sheer joy they took in being in each other’s presence.

“Where are the two of you headed?” er-ge asked eventually, turning his attention back to her. “Have the two of you planned anything?”

Humming under her breath, Qilan shrugged. “We are thinking to head east, first, to see the ocean.” Neither Yueying nor she had ever seen such a thing, and they had heard stories of its roiling waves and endless horizons that dwarfed even the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. “Afterwards… we’re not sure.” She bit her lip once more, looking up to meet er-ge’s eyes. 

“Leaving home to become rootless wanderers,” er-ge said, catching her meaning immediately. After a moment, he frowned, sighing. “Are you sure? The lands are far from being entirely at peace, sao-zi. There are likely bandits on the roads, and you will meet with danger.”

“Yueying has her sword, and I still carry the dagger that you gave me,” Qilan replied, repeating almost word for word what she had told him the last time he had asked her this. She didn’t remind him that, like himself, Yueying and her had also spent time wandering. Though they had never travelled alone, they knew well the travails of the road. “Please, er-ge. You have broken the chains that held us down, so do not worry. We have finally found the courage to spread our wings and fly.”

“It wasn’t Yunchang who did that,” the Emperor said. When Qilan blinked at him, he gave her a wry smile that deepened the lines at the sides of his mouth, grooves that spoke eloquently of frustration. “Both you and Yueying have done that by yourselves, Qilan. You know all too well that they are many who, even when the chains are broken, pretend that their wings cannot carry them because they are too afraid of the skies.”

Qilan closed her eyes. The grief was not her own, she knew: there were too many nights she had spent holding Yueying as she wept at the loss of her husband, of all the friends she had known, because of their inability to make the same choice she had made herself. Too many nights where Yueying had stared at her own hands in candlelight, counting blisters and growing calluses, and murmured that her father had always judged her wrists to be too weak to hold the sword she had spent the afternoon practicing with.

Too many nights that Yueying had spent bent over a table, her brush moving feverishly-fast over paper, covering pages and pages with tiny, half-scrawled characters until ink had soaked into her sleeves. Qilan learned to read the passing of the weeks from the changing of the air, then, for she could no longer use the number of candles she needed to buy as a marker. 

On the day that they had married – nearly a year ago now – she had looked into Yueying’s eyes when the other woman had lifted the red cloth that veiled her face from the world. She had taken in the shadows and, when they had shared their first kiss as husband and wife who had partaken in each other’s cups as representation of the rest of their lives, she had breathed in them in and wrapped their weight around her own ribs.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” she murmured now. “I know.” 

“Come now,” her er-ge said. He nudged at his husband, and the Emperor obligingly moved aside to give him room to stand. Er-ge picked up his glaive with the same ease as he always did, and smiled at her when she blinked up at him. “Did you expect me to not send my sao-zi _and_ my student off personally?”

“Er-ge,” Qilan tried to protest, but he reached out a hand, and all she could do was to allow him to pull her to her feet. As she rocked back to her heels, she saw that the Emperor had stood as well, brushing his robes down again.

“No matter where the two of you go,” the Emperor said, his voice loud enough to carry through the clearing, “you will hear the news of our Xiaojie’s wedding. When it happens, you must come back to Xu to attend it.”

“Father!” the Crown Princess cried. Flat on her back, she lifted the brother who had, for reasons known only to very small children, decided to sprawl on top of her face. Peering to the side of flailing legs and dodging the fingers of her other brother, she scowled at her father. “That will not happen for a very long time, if it ever happens at all. And do not use my life as blackmail to get Qilan to return!”

Even as the Emperor roared with laughter, Qilan silently agreed with the girl. It would take another decade or so before Cao Jie married, if she ever acquiesced to such a thing. It wasn’t that she was an Alpha – a fact obvious from the moment of her birth – but that her interest in such intimate matters did not match that of her love of politics, philosophy, poetry, and all things associated with the military. At thirteen, she saw only embarrassment in her parents’ affection for each other instead of the blessing that it was. (The Emperor’s delight in teasing his firstborn certainly, Qilan thought, did not help matters.) 

“But it is a terribly convenient reason,” her father said, lips twitching. He walked over to his daughter and lifted the boy still rolling in the grass into his arms. The child – little Cao Shuo, Qilan recognised by the silver on his sleeves (it was impossible to tell them apart otherwise, for he and his brother were still utterly identical) – giggled and flung his arms around his father’s neck, planting his face into a shoulder. The Emperor patted his head absentmindedly.

“My future is not for your convenience, Father,” the Princess huffed. Tilting her head back, she tried to meet the Lord Chancellor’s eyes upside down. “Right, Uncle Wenyuan?”

Cracking his eye open, the Lord Chancellor lifted the hand that he had been using to amuse his younger son (via continuously bopping his tiny nose – while the Grand Marshal pulled faces at the other one) – to flap it at her. “Please, Your Highness,” he said, the words a low drawl, “do not pull me into your family squabbles.”

A hand closed around her elbow. Qilan blinked, turning to her er-ge. “We should get a move on,” he said, clearly fighting through laughter to speak. “If not, they will force you to stay by dragging you into endless arguments.”

“The Empress has foiled you again, cousin,” Qilan heard the Grand Marshal say as she hurriedly followed er-ge. “Perhaps the two of you should spend some time apart so that he is no longer so clear-sighted about your plots.”

“Hah,” the Princess snorted loudly. The heavy _thud_ she made as she flopped back down onto the grass made for the perfect punctuation on what everyone in the clearing – and perhaps in the entire palace, or even the city – thought of the likelihood of the idea. Grand Marshal Xiahou’s loud sniggers seemed to confirm it as well. 

Glancing to the side, Qilan let out a soft giggle of her own at the sight of the flush dusting her er-ge’s cheeks. Like always, he was terribly embarrassed whenever he was reminded that his was the marriage that had brought down a corrupted dynasty to build a brighter, better one from its ashes; that it was for the sake of breaking his cage that the most powerful Alpha in the realm had decided to take advantage of his influence to stage a coup. Even after so many years of remaining in one of the highest seats of all under the skies, her er-ge had kept such a stranglehold upon his humility.

But perhaps there was a reason. Qilan turned back just as they made a turn, taking in the last sight of those who remained in the clearing, of the clearing itself. Three springs had passed since the death of Shu, and the verdant grass left no sign whatsoever of the tragedies that had happened upon it, no trace of the blood of those with self-clipped wings that had been spilled. She swallowed, and did not close her eyes. But she could not force herself to turn to the east where, in the corner of the palace, a small windowless hut rested with its floorboards still stained by the shadows of innocent blood spilled.

She breathed, and focused on the grip on her elbow. 

But er-ge let go of her once the sounds of laughter and teasing faded away, leaving only silence to fall between them. Qilan watched him beneath her lids and witnessed the moment when his quiet grief at her leaving draped once more around him. She lowered her head, for he had never spoken it aloud and never would, but she knew, nonetheless.

For ten years, her er-ge had stayed in Wei almost entirely alone, the only one who had once been caged and still felt breathless at the sight of the skies that spread out in front of his eyes; the only one who knew too well the weight of a cage’s shadows falling upon his wings. For ten years, her er-ge had stood alone amongst those who never really knew what it was like to struggle against oneself: the Emperor of Wei drew mostly those who already knew they could be better, or those who could learn quickly enough the errors of their ways to avoid being thrown out of the command tent.

Then she and Yueying had agreed to stay. Then, for the past three years, he had had a silent understanding with them both. Now, they would leave, and, this time, it was he who could not and would not follow.

As the gates approached, as they made the turn for the stables, er-ge quickened his steps, and Qilan followed. She did not stifle the smile that tugged at her lips at the sight of Yueying, checking over the packs that had already been slung over one of the horses that they had been given for their journey. Yueying didn’t even blink at the sight of er-ge walking beside her, only stepped away from the horses and ducked her head into a bow.

“Your Majesty,” she greeted. When er-ge set his glaive down, sinking the base of it into the ground, Yueying lifted her eyes and added, wryly, “Shifu.”

He cocked his head. “You were going to leave without saying goodbye,” he said, pointed.

“I expected Qilan to return with you,” she replied, tone wry. “Besides, this is not truly goodbye, is it, shifu? I am bringing your skills with me. I am bringing the sword,” she reached behind herself to tap the hilt that peeked above her shoulder, “that will guarantee our safety.” Then before er-ge could speak, Yueying grinned out of the corner of her mouth. “And you still have not said what you would like to have as reminders of us.”

Er-ge snorted, shaking his head. “What use are such objects?” he asked. “Besides, I know that I will still hear from you, even if I will not be able to see you whenever I wish.”

“You will?” Qilan blurted out. She ducked her head by instinct when both her husband and er-ge turned towards her, biting on her lip. “Why?”

Yueying took a step towards her. Her fingers were achingly gentle as they tapped on Qilan’s chin, urging her to raise her head. Qilan’s husband’s eyes shone with a sweet affection that caught the breath in her throat. “I am technically not out of the service of the Emperor and Empress of Wei,” Yueying murmured. “Too much, the Emperor said, had been given by them through ensuring that I could serve – so much that I have yet to repay.”

Qilan blinked. “What…” she swallowed. “What does that mean?” Would their journey be cut short, now? 

“It means that we must stop by every town and village, and speak to the people,” Yueying said, her smile gentling and turning uncertain at the edges. “That I must bring brush and paper and send reports back to shifu,” she tilted her head in acknowledgment of the man, “so they know what is happening in provinces far away from Xu.”

 _Oh_. Words rang again in Qilan’s mind, words from years ago when Shu Han had first fallen and she thought there was nothing left ahead of her but the bitterness of a death that came after a wasted life. Her er-ge had said, then: _For changes to solidify, for them to sink roots deep enough to loosen the soil of the old precepts, we need eyes of ants who could crawl high enough to reach the cloud upon which the Emperor sits._

A quiet laugh burst out of her suddenly. Uncaring of the amused eyes still on them, Qilan reached out, tugging her husband closer by her collar. Yueying blinked, nearly falling forward, but her hands were still so gentle as they cupped Qilan’s cheeks, bringing their foreheads together.

“Now,” she said, shoulders shaking. “Now _you_ are a handmaiden, too.”

Yueying could not have been. The Empress’s handmaidens, all of Qilan’s adopted brothers and sisters, were omegas; had to be for the very reason that the post was created in the first place. Yueying had been given the role of a plain soldier – serving in the platoon of Colonel Xiahou Hui, husband of one of Qilan’s handmaiden-sisters – one at the very bottom of the ranks even though the teacher who instructed her in the use of a sword was the Empress himself. But now… Now…

They were both handmaidens. Their chains had been broken and they took to the skies. But if they ever wished to look back, there was a nest that was waiting for them, a place where they could rest their tired wings. For, as her er-ge had always said, no handmaiden of the Empress would stop being one, not until they wished to leave.

Qilan squeezed her eyes shut. Pressing a soft kiss to the corners of Yueying’s mouth, she pulled away and flung herself towards her er-ge, towards the man who had rescued her and given her a family and even now sought to take care of her. She could feel him stiffening in her embrace, could feel the awkwardness in his motions as he patted her back, but she only held him tighter.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Er-ge, _thank you_.”

Finally, he returned her embrace, holding her tight as well. They clung onto each other for moments before her er-ge pulled away. He kept his hands on her shoulders as she tried to scrub her eyes, and his smile was unfairly steady. “There is only one favour I’d like to ask of you,” he said. When she only cocked her head, still sniffling, he laughed, sounding slightly embarrassed.

“Mengde will not say it, but at times he worries about his hometown,” he said, rubbing at his lips. “All we know of it is that the governor is now an officer by the name of Bian, but very little else. If your travels ever take you near the area, will you look into what is happening in Qiao? It’s a town in Peiguo, to the south of here.” He paused. “If you get to meet the governor… if she is a woman, will you ask if she knows whether ceramic will ever rot away?”

Still unable to speak and more than a little confused, Qilan nodded. Yueying stepped up next to her and wrapped a warm and reassuringly solid arm around her waist, and Qilan leaned against her, sighing quietly. “It will be an honour,” she said. 

Er-ge looked at them for a moment. Then a sudden light came to his eyes, and he chuckled, shaking his head. “No,” he said, as if to himself. “I should not worry.” His hands came to clasp their shoulders, squeezing just once, before he stepped back.

Straightening, Yueying stepped away. Qilan missed her warmth, but she knew what she had to do. As one, they fell to their knees in front of Wei’s co-ruler, the Empress of Ferocious Compassion, and pressed their fists to their chests in the salute of warriors bidding farewell to the lord they had sworn fealty to.

“Yueying—” “Qilan—” “Will now take our leave!”

“Stay well,” her er-ge said. He lifted his glaive from the ground, the shifting of soil the only sound as he stepped to the side. “Keep yourselves safe.”

Raising her head, Qilan gave him a smile. “I will,” she said. Then he nodded again, and spun on his heel. Qilan watched him as he walked away, back to his husband and children, back to the life he had carved out for himself here, in Wei. She stayed on her knees out of gratitude, out of respect, and because Guan Yunchang deserved nothing less for all that he had done and all he could still do. 

After er-ge had turned the corner, Qilan allowed Yueying tug her back to her feet. They held each other tight for long moments, Qilan’s cheek resting on Yueying’s shoulder, feeling the safety of those arms wrapped around her waist and the weight of the hands resting on the small of her back. She closed her eyes.

When she was a young girl in that remote village, she had been taught by her mother and father that it would be a great fortune if she managed to become the concubine of a rich Alpha, for if she bore him an Alpha child, she would win enough favour to be granted money for all of her relatives to have coffins. She had been taught that it would take Heaven’s hand dabbling in her fate for her to become a concubine to an Alpha who was powerful and influential.

Lord Liu was powerful and influential, with the royal blood of the Han running in his veins and warriors to call upon. Lord Liu was kind, in his own way; a man of righteousness and honour, fighting for the sake of tradition and to ease the suffering of the people. Her parents had been so proud that Qilan had caught his attention, had spoken that very night about how they no longer worried about the future costs of their funerals now that Lord Liu had taken an interest in their daughter.

By the time Qilan had married Lord Liu, her parents were already dead, their corpses left in the open to rot without any coffins. She did not know; she could never be sure. They had never returned to her village after they had left it.

Her parents would not have liked Yueying, she knew. A female beta was strange enough, but one who had once been a wife? One who was not merely a former wife, but without any land to call her home or enough of a place in the world to have a courtesy name? They would have raged at Qilan for becoming the wife of one such as her.

But they were dead, and Qilan’s hands could never close around their ancestral tablets, so far was she from her village in both distance and time. And Yueying looked at her and saw not the prettiness of her face, but the mind and heart beneath that constantly ached. Yueying met her eyes and saw not their pleasing shape, but the pain within that she tried to hide, and her hands were so gentle when she tried to soothe it away. Yueying held her in her arms and didn’t delight in her weak body – truly weak, truly terrible in wielding a weapon, completely unlike er-ge and Yueying herself – and saw not the proof of her superiority but a need to protect.

Theirs was not a marriage that was approved of by the precepts. Theirs was not a joining that would bring glory to their parents. The path they now took was one that would sink them into the shadowy depths of those forgotten by history.

Qilan had never expected a legacy. Those like her never had their names recorded, after all. What use would she have for such a thing, now? All it had brought her were moments, hours, _days_ , in which she lost control of her own body for the sake of another’s legacy; days in which she was reminded, over and over, about the lowliness of her place in the world.

Leaning back, she tilted her head up to look at her husband. All of these years, Yueying had never told her about the time she had spent watching her while being the Chief Strategist’s wife. All Qilan had to hold was the grief in Yueying’s eyes, a grief carved so deep that, even as skin and muscles healed, the bones continued to bleed. All Qilan could do was to quietly wipe away the bright scarlet that dripped from Yueying’s brush- and sword-made calluses; all she could do was wait. That was fine; she was used to waiting, and this was a better reason than any she had ever found. 

One day, Yueying would show her what she had been writing; what was written in those books that were, even now, folded inside oilskins and tucked at the very bottom of their packs. One day, Yueying would show her, and Qilan would trace her fingers over those once-foreign characters and breathe in the stories of her husband’s past.

But not today. Not while Yueying’s grief was still so deep and dark in her eyes, and the wounds reflected in those oily shadows still bled so heavily.

Tucking a few flyaway strands of out of Yueying’s face, Qilan pressed their lips together. Yueying sighed quietly into her mouth, and her thumb stroked lightly over the knobs of Qilan’s spine, making her shiver lightly as the kiss deepened.

When they pulled away from each other, flames had lit under Qilan’s cheeks, and Yueying’s lips were swollen and darkly pink. They laughed at each other, with each other, leaning their foreheads together. “We should go,” Yueying said.

“Yes,” Qilan nodded. She followed her husband to the unladen horse, accepting her hand for help as she stepped up into the saddle. She peered behind her to watch Yueying grab the back of the leather seat, the cantle, and swing herself up without needing to use the stirrup. 

Yueying had taken so well to the arts of battle.

Arms wrapped around her waist. Qilan made to rest her hands on her lap, but Yueying took hold of her left wrist, tugging it to the side. Qilan blinked when her fingers touched the reins of the horse that held their packs.

“You have steadier hands,” Yueying explained. After a moment, she grinned. “Besides, I will need my own for the sword if we meet trouble, won’t I?”

A pair of hands trained more for embroidery and weaving than for leather and war. Qilan gripped tight onto the reins. “You will,” she said, barely speaking through an overfull throat. She leaned back against Yueying, letting out a shuddering exhale when lips pressed against her temple in quiet reassurance. 

They rode towards the gates. The guards saluted them both as they left and didn’t even take a second glance at Qilan’s hand on the reins of the packhorse. Qilan returned the greeting before she craned her neck back to stare beyond Yueying’s shoulder to take in the sight of the palace as they left it.

“We’ll come back one day, won’t we?” Qilan asked.

“Yes,” Yueying said. Her body was warm and solid against Qilan’s back, and her lips ghosted over her cheek in a brief kiss. “It is home, after all.”

Qilan turned her eyes forward. The stone path stretched out in front of them, carrying them towards the gates of the city. Further on was… She smiled to herself.

The road was long, but the sun was shining.  
__  
***  


_Three years ago_  
_The first and last year of the Liu Dynasty of the Kingdom of Shu, midwinter_  
_Xu, the Kingdom of Wei_

“I should thank you for your desire to see me,” Lady Sun said, dark eyes fixed on him above the wide rim of her tea cup. “I should, too, show gratitude for the news you have brought, for I have been kept in isolation with Lady Mi and the children all of this while.” 

She placed the cup down. Steam rose from it, curling towards her wrist in the slight breeze that slipped through the heavy curtains. She did not, Kongming noticed, mention the little concubine, or even Yueying. Were they imprisoned elsewhere, then? Kongming made a note to ask Yueying if he managed to see her again.

“Yet I find that I cannot manage even such a simple courtesy, Mister Zhuge,” Lady Sun continued. “Your deeds have only reminded me of my powerlessness.”

Kongming paused in raising his own cup to his mouth. He took a sip of the bitter liquid before he shook his head. “There is no need for such formalities,” he told her. “I find enough thanks, Lady Sun, in the realisation that you have not been broken by Shu’s defeat.”

“Why would you expect such a thing?” she returned immediately, cocking her head to the side. “In Weiling, I was kept sheltered from the battles. During our trip here, the carriage I shared with the other wives was lined with down-stuffed silk.” As she turned her hand up towards him, her white wrist shone underneath winter’s pale sunlight peeking through the curtains lifted by a passing breeze. “What could have broken me?”

There was a sharpness in her smile that should serve as a warning. But Kongming knew the edge of it on his own lips; he knew, too, that the blade was turned inwards. “A tiger,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “will slam her body against the cage. Padding the bars would only result in the blossoming of bruises before the bones eventually break.” 

Lady Sun laughed. The sound, overly loud, reverberated in the small room, growing in strength with every beat against the walls. “You are so kind, Mister Zhuge, that your benevolence has grown fangs,” she said. “I have not been a tiger for years. All I have become is a declawed kitten, with barely enough strength to defend myself.”

Picking up his fan, Kongming laid it over his chest, looking at her. “You have not,” he said, and knew even as he spoke that the words had no strength to break the bars of the cage that so surrounded her. Still, he continued, “Your contributions to the battles at Chibi will be a tale that will resonate through the years.”

She didn’t reply for long moments, running her fingers over the rim of her cup. Her wrist had grown thinner and more fragile since he had first met her, Kongming realised, the bones so stark that they seemed barely capable of carrying a pigeon’s weight, much less drawing a bow.

“You have more faith in that than I do,” she said finally. “Histories have long recorded only the conduct of victorious Emperors and Kings, for it is their favour that scholars wish to seek. There are exceptions, of course, but only for actions of grand valour and glory.” Tugging her sleeve down to cover her wrist, she lifted her head. “Do you remember what you told me, Mister Zhuge? You said, _But I can give you deeds that, if you succeed, will perhaps give you a wind strong enough to break open the doors of your cage_.”

Her eyes met his, bright-dark in contrast to the deep shadows underneath. “I succeeded,” she said, voice soft. “Yet all it brought me was the steel to fortify the bars, for the brilliance and courage my brother so praised became naught but bargaining chips in his alliance with your lord.” She picked up her cup of tea, draining it in one gulp as if it was _baijiu_ instead.

Averting his gaze, Kongming picked up the ladle and poured her another cup. Despite the pot being covered, the tea was already cooling. Yet Lady Sun still wrapped her hands around the porcelain as if trying to steal warmth. Even now, tucked within a stone-walled room, she had not removed her cloak.

Strong-willed as Lady Sun was, her body was weak, having barely recovered from the terribly difficult pregnancy and labour, at the end of winter last year. Kongming remembered, for Lord Liu had stalled the celebrations for the birth of little Liu Yong for a day, stating his worries about the wife who had still not regained consciousness. 

He could not help but remember, for it was an act that had set alight the murmurs of his kindness and generosity: who else but a truly benevolent leader would remember his wife’s condition, after all, when he had a new Alpha heir to crow over?

“Yueying once told me,” he kept his voice low enough that she could easily ignore him if she so wished, “if I had been a warlord, she would not have agreed to my proposal. For there is little else that is so abhorrent to her than to be a political pawn.” Lady Sun’s hand stilled where she had been tapping his fingers against the cup. Kongming flapped his fan just once, feathers bristling in the small breeze. “You are stronger-willed than her, Lady Sun. Why did you agree?”

“Am I?” Lady Sun asked. When Kongming looked at her steadily, she barked another laugh before she shook her head. “No, Mister Zhuge, I do not ask it in seek of praise or reassurance. My question is one of pure sincerity.” She paused. 

“I heard: Cao Cao offered you a position as one of his strategists.” Kongming blinked; had she not only just thanked him for bringing him the first news she had heard for months? Her lips curved upwards, teeth peeking through at the edge. “It is a post that will give you years enough to leave behind deeds that will have your name echoing throughout history.” Her hand swept outwards. The heavy sleeve of her robe caught at the edge of the table, tugging. “Why did you refuse him?”

Of those from whom he had expected this question, Lady Sun had not been on the list. It seemed that Kongming had underestimated her for the first time since they met. He considered for a moment before he nodded, standing.

“Sixteen days ago,” he started, heading towards the nearest window, “the Empress of Wei paid me a visit, and he brought me a gift.” He turned his fan downwards, feathers brushing over the inside of his wrist as he tapped the handle against the small potted tree, barely taller and wider than a hand, that sat on a table tucked underneath thick, heavy curtains. “When it first arrived, it held great wealth within the autumn captured within its leaves.”

The branches of the _penjing_ were nearly empty, now, having let fall reds and golds onto the soil beneath. It had become Kongming’s ritual to pick the leaves up from the polished wooden table and to place them carefully back within the porcelain. “I know not what the Empress had done to allow for such beauty,” he continued. “But, as you can see, my hands are entirely unsuited to it.”

Lady Sun stood. Her cloak whispered susurrations as she approached him. Her now-delicate fingers – calluses worn away in the two years that had passed since her marriage – brushed over the leaves, before she chose one that was sunset-bright and yet yellowing at the edges. Her every movement was slow and deliberate, but Kongming still found himself surprised when she blew it in his direction.

He raised his fan. When he lowered it, the leaf clung onto the feathers, a spot of brightness against the dull blacks and greys of the bristles. 

“For a man famed for his cleverness,” the Lady Sun said, mirth threading into her voice, “you remain a terrible liar, Mister Zhuge.” When Kongming stared at her, she laughed. “No strategist worth the silk of his robes would let pass the chance to ruin his enemy from within.” Her fingers traced one too-thin branch of the _penjing_. “Your reasons are something else entirely.” 

“Do you think so lowly of my honour?” Kongming asked, keeping his voice light.

Shaking her head, Lady Sun flashed a smile at him, canines glimmering in the bright-pale light streaming in. “A strategist is built for war, and there is no honour to be found in war,” she stated. “Besides, I distinctly remember that _you_ offered to turn the sister of a Marquis into a spy. What honour is there in _that_?”

Kongming picked the leaf from his fan and placed it carefully back into the pot. He did not speak. Her words were akin to the fangs she pretended she no longer had, sharp and piercing enough to sink through flesh and scrape over bone.

“Perhaps I have been unfair,” she said finally, soft-voiced words that barely filled the silence that had settled in between them. “Tell me, Mister Zhuge: has the Empress brought you only this one pot?”

“Yes,” Kongming confirmed, nodding.

“That is a pity indeed,” Lady Sun said. She straightened, folding her hands within her robes. Her gaze returned to him, the weight like a blanket wrapped over his shoulders, heavy enough to threaten his breathing. “It would be more beautiful, and certainly far less strange, if it were part of a grand scene.” She paused, cocking her head. “Perhaps the grounds of the palace in Chang’an, as described from the texts of history.” 

_Ah._ Though Kongming had never seen the _penjing_ as a single part of something greater, he could grasp Lady Sun’s perspective immediately. “So, you agreed for the sake of duty,” he murmured.

“Do not give loyalty such an ugly name,” Lady Sun said, oddly gentle in her chiding. “I was born barely years before my father’s death; I remember little of him. It is the deeds of my oldest brother that are carved into my memory.” Her hand dipped underneath the small pile of red leaves, picking them up before letting them fall, one by one, through the widening space of her fingers. “Under his hands, I changed from a child of a mere Lord to the sister of a Marquis.” She lifted her eyes. “Do you understand now, Mister Zhuge, why I agreed to marry?”

“Each has a part to play,” Kongming murmured in return. “Yet yours, Lady Sun, was not one that fitted well to your wrists.”

“It does not,” Lady Sun agreed with an ease that set Kongming blinking. She laughed at his surprise. “I am not such a fool, Mister Zhuge, to not have realised that marriage would strengthen the bars of my cage and tear out whatever wings I might have grown. Yet…” She brushed her sleeve over the branches, setting them shivering. Sunset-coloured leaves scattered over the table, some of them floating gently in the constant breeze.

“Cao Cao waited at our doors, a demon with long shadows,” she continued. “Our soldiers die so rapidly, and their mothers’ tears threaten to flood the Yangtze. Our soils are so rich, yet the hands left to till them have become weak from starving.” She raised her eyes to meet his. “In comparison, my own private miseries are surely lighter than this leaf.”

Kongming’s breath caught. He stared at her for a long moment before he pressed his fan to his chest and made a deep bow. “You honour me, Your Grace,” he said, making sure that each word was as sharp and crisp as the biting chill, “by showing me your Emperor’s heart.”

There was neither mockery nor flattery in his words, only sincerity. Confucius had stated: a strong ruler was one whose heart was given not to himself, not to those around him, but to the people whose suffering he could rarely see. Mencius had added, too, that one’s role in society was set in stone by one’s birth. 

He took another look at Lady Sun’s thin, fragile wrist, and he could not help but wonder how the battles of Chibi would have gone if she had not been the Lady, but instead the Marquis. Would they have won, then, instead of lost? Would those battles have set the loose, thin soil beneath their feet into stone instead of calling the floodwaters to wash them all away?

There were no answers to be found in such futile questions. Straightening, Kongming lifted his fan to hide his face. He watched Lady Sun for a moment more. “If,” he started, “I can convince Cao Cao to offer you the chance of a new lease of life in Wei,” If he could give _his_ to her instead… “Would you take it?”

Lady Sun cocked her head. Toying with a leaf between her fingers, she said, “What did he ask of _you_ in return for your life?”

“Talent,” Kongming said. He paused for enough time for Lady Sun to laugh, throwing her head back with her shoulders shaking; they both knew that, if talent was wings, she would have long broken her cage by the sheer virtue of their size. “And loyalty.”

She smiled. “Ah,” she said. The leaf fell from her hand to the _penjing,_ hovered at the edge of one branch before dropping down, becoming indistinguishable amidst the others so much like it. “I thank you for the thought, Mister Zhuge… After all that I have said, surely you have realised that such a request will only be a waste of your breath?” She raised an eyebrow. “And mine, as well?” 

Even before he had spoken, Kongming had known what her answer would be. Still, he had to try. What would her death accomplish, after all, except for the sheer waste of a life that could have been so much more if she had given herself a chance to take it?

The laugh escaped him before he could stop it, soundless yet strong enough to rattle through his bones like the bite of an unseasonable cold wind in the summer. Were those not words that could apply to himself, as well? To General Zhao, too? And surely it was such a terrible irony: the very man whom Lady Sun had just named a demon, the man Kongming had known for his life to be a lowly villain, was now akin to a god instead, offering life with open palms lined with sincerity. 

Life that none of them could bring themselves to hold in their hollow-boned hands. 

“So you see,” Lady Sun said. Folding her hands back into her sleeves, she leaned against the wall, still watching him. “Will you now give me an answer, Mister Zhuge, as to why you have chosen to walk to your death instead of taking the route of life that has been offered to you?”

Kongming lifted his fan. Meeting her eyes above the feathers, he tried to smile. “Do you believe, Your Grace, that loyalty can be as much a cage as the judgment of those who do not believe in our abilities?”

“That,” Lady Sun said, “is not a reason.”

“No,” Kongming returned. “It is not.” There was a smile tugging at his lips, and he allowed it to show and blossom bitterness on his tongue. But he could not have both that and Lady Sun’s visage in front of him, so he placed his fan on the table and tugged open the curtains covering the windows.

Cold winds whipped immediately at his face, the chill settling deep into his bones and making his teeth chatter. Kongming kept his eyes open. Out there, beyond the flurrying snow and the bare trees, was Yueying. She had not come to visit him in the days that he had kept himself here, within the four walls of this room that both was and was not a cell. She was, he thought, likely already teaching her feet the layout of the palace, and inking upon her fingers the shapes of her new duties. She was wiser than he was, and would not have made the same choice as he did.

He hoped. He _hoped_. He let the curtains fall again, staring at the dull black cloth. Lady Sun’s gaze was heavy on his neck. Strangely, his breaths still came so easily.

“Cowardice,” he said, barely more than a whisper. “I have no reason but my own cowardice.” 

She did not reply. For a long moment, Kongming thought that she had not heard him at all, that he would have to form the word that had taken his tongue over a decade to learn.

Then Lady Sun laughed. “What an answer,” she said. When she shook her head, strands of her hair brushed over the colourless wall. “What a word, Mister Zhuge, you have chosen as a synonym for loyalty and duty.”

Turning, Kongming looked at her. For the first time since she had entered, he allowed himself to take in more than her pale, thin hands and the shadows of her eyes and her lips that could hide knives. He drank in the sight of her heavy silk-and-fur cloak, a gift from Lord Liu on the first winter that had arrived at Chibi after their wedding. He took in the gauntness of her cheeks and the streaks of black underneath her eyes, breathed in the drape of her robes – red, still, the colour of Eastern Wu – that nearly drowned her slender form. The few strands of hair that had escaped her jewelled pins to curl around her face were so thin that they seemed to break under the smallest of breezes.

He remembered how she had looked when she had returned from Cao Cao’s camp, years ago now. Dressed in nothing but the dust-caked rough blue cotton of Wei soldiers, she had had dirt on her neck and underneath her nails. But the triumphant flush on her cheeks had shone even brighter than her eyes, and when she had spun around to reveal the map she had drawn of the camp, her hair – loose once she had removed the helmet that nearly had had her shot at the gates – had swung around her, fluttering like a raven’s wings in flight.

Lowering his eyes, he curled his hand around the branches of the _penjing_ again. “When this seed first sprouted, gentle hands set straight rods and strong wires to ensure the branches grew straight. The sprout learned to love metal, then, for it depended on it so utterly.” He swallowed. His eyes burned. “No sprout would recognise those rods and wires to be crooked, Lady Sun. No sprout could ever think that the hands that had given it life and cared for it gave not love but cruelty.”

“To turn the other way, we must break our own spines,” Lady Sun picked up the thread, her voice just as soft. Her fingers brushed against his own. “Who among us would not fear the pain?”

“Which sprout,” Kongming picked up the same thread, “would not instead give another name, find another reason, to cling onto those rusting rods and warped wires that had stunted it in the first place? Even if every word, every reason, only twisted the trunk and branches further?”

Lady Sun barked a laugh. “Such beautiful words,” she sighed out, “such a beautiful metaphor, you have found to name our lack of courage.” She glanced at him, and her smile was lovely in its brokenness. “You said I had an Emperor’s heart, Mister Zhuge. Do you admit your error, now?”

“No,” Kongming said. “You have an Emperor’s heart, Lady Sun, for you knew, and you had the courage to give it name.” He straightened and splayed his hand over his heart, bowing deep. “You gave me the strength to give it name, though you already have so little of your own.”

Her lips curved upwards into a mirthless smile. “No one,” she said, voice so soft, “deserves to die without looking straight into the eyes of what killed them.” Her hand dropped onto his shoulder and squeezed – a greeting like one exchanged between warriors. “Not even one who calls himself a coward.”

Kongming lifted his hand and placed it over hers. Their eyes met. “I am looking,” he told the near-mirror of himself. “Thanks to you, I am.” 

When she smiled at him, there were no knives in her eyes. Only sorrow, dull and fading like the edges of her form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the first scene: “Shifu” is 师父, which means “teacher (in the martial arts).”
> 
> The mention of the governor in Qiao, Peiguo, named Bian, is a nudge towards Lady Bian, Cao Cao’s real historical wife, who is an amazing woman ([information on her here](https://the-archlich.tumblr.com/post/106806890182)). Cao Cao is really from Qiao, and the period of time when he returned to his hometown is also when he worked most on his poetry. Yunchang’s line – about whether ceramic rots – is a reference to [this particular poem](https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E7%B2%BE%E5%88%97), for which I can find no English translation and am not skilled enough in Mandarin to translate properly myself.
> 
> For the second scene: 劉永 Liu Yong, Liu Bei and Sun Shangxiang’s son in this universe, has a character – the second – that means “eternity.” Even if Liu Bei doesn’t grasp the irony, Shangxiang _definitely_ does. Liu Yong is also a real son of Liu Bei in history. Though his mother’s name was not recorded, it’s _likely_ not Shangxiang: historically, Liu Bei didn’t even get a chance to consummate the marriage, because Shangxiang went everywhere with her one hundred armed maids who guarded her rooms when she slept.


	2. Part I: 裕于后, “enrich your posterity”

_The four hundred and fifth year of the Han Dynasty, early spring_  
_Jingzhou, the future Kingdom of Shu Han_

Green landed on the _weiqi_ board, resting on the lines bisecting two tiles. Kongming took a sip of his tea as he picked the leaf up, and laid it carefully into his bowl of stones. The waxy surface looked flat and dull compared to the gleam of the polished obsidian that surrounded it. 

“A warlord who pays a visit on feet encased in nothing but straw,” his opponent mused. She picked up a white stone between two fingers, and laid it on a tile so delicately that it made no sound. “Three trips he had made, his generals claimed, and for the past two he had left empty-handed. Now he demands nothing in recompense for the time and effort he had spent.” Her fingers slid down the lines bisecting the tiles, looking at him from beneath her lashes.

“What do you think of such a man?”

 _Liu Bei_. The surname of the progenitor of the Han dynasty as well as the Lord Governor of Jingzhou; a given name that implied preparation and quality both. A good name; a name that implied great heights that awaited the right opportunity. A name, he thought, that befitted a warlord, but that was ill-suited to the straw wrapped around his feet.

“One understands more of another by those he surrounds himself with,” he returned finally, smiling at his wife even as he took another sip of his tea, draining the last of it without letting the dregs touch his lips. “Strong and honourable warriors Lord Liu has brought with him, but none of them a strategist.” He laid down his own black stone, carefully blocking Yueying’s next move. “It is not simply humility that motivates him.”

“Is not the ability to inspire such warriors to follow him something of worth?” Yueying cocked her head to the side. She slid another white stone onto the board.

“Even those without righteousness can gain followers in this time of constant war,” Kongming said wryly. His brows creased as he glanced at the game: she had managed to corner him again, efficiently turning the tide of the game with a single move. “Many soldiers and warriors have been so worn by this age that their skins can be pierced with a hook as simple as brute strength.” 

Was not the popularity of Lü Bu, a warrior with little mind for strategy but with brutality corded into the muscles of his arms, enough proof of that? Even if Lü Bu could be argued to own some modicum of honour, there was Dong Zhuo, who had Generals aplenty willing to prostrate themselves at his feet even as they saw the suffering the tyrant wrought upon the people.

“My apologies,” Yueying said, voice too dry to be sincere. She watched him, fingers toying with her next white stone. “I should have said: is not an _admission of need_ something of worth?”

Laughing, Kongming picked up the leaf. He slid his thumb over its underside to feel the thin veins. “Yes,” he said. He paused, and looked at her for another moment. “Which of his warriors caught your eye, Lady?”

“The same who caught yours,” Yueying replied. She tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, and her smile teased at him with its briefness. “What was his name again?”

“You remember it as well as I do,” Kongming said, helplessly amused. He placed the leaf on his palm and blew it over to her. He picked up his fan from the side of the board to hide his grin when her eyes crossed to watch it land in her hair. “Lord Guan, wasn’t it?”

“Lord Liu said that he is the fiercest warrior in his army,” Yueying said. She plucked the leaf from her hair, eyes fixing upon the fragile stem before she sighed and allowed it to fall into her bowl. The green appeared brighter when surrounded by white than it did with black. “That is a high honour to give.” 

She hesitated. There was none but the two of them at their tiny, two-roomed home, yet her tongue seemed unwilling to unstick from the roof of her mouth to allow her breath.

Folding back his sleeve, Kongming reached out. He placed two fingers on her wrist, right on top of her pulse. It thundered beneath his skin, beating strongly enough to judder against his bones. He knew her thoughts without needing her to speak. Five winters might be long in the reckoning of men, but they were not long enough to loosen the hold his mind had on his memories.

It was her father whom he had met first. Huang Chengyan had looked upon him, decades younger than himself and a student of his contemporary, and saw the brilliant mind that barely managed to shield itself behind the youthful face. One day, after Kongming had won another game of _weiqi,_ Master Huang had looked at him for a long moment. _There is one who can prove your match,_ he had said, _but she is horrid-looking, with yellow hair and dark skin._ So rare it was that Kongming had met one who could challenge him that he demanded a meeting immediately. When questioned, he had said, _I care little of her looks or what she is meant to be. It is the mind beneath that draws me, and the breadth of that surely is unconstrained by the colours of her skin and hair._

Slowly, Yueying’s pulse slowed, and her breathing eased up enough for her shoulders to not bunch so tightly. He raised his eyes. 

When they had first met, Yueying had played the first game while wearing a veil, using stones differentiated not by colour but characters carved upon their grey surfaces to allow her to see using her fingertips. After hours, after he had won, she had folded her hands on the tabletop, and invited him to lift the veil. 

With dark eyes framed by lashes so thick that they cast shadows upon her sharp cheekbones, skin pale enough to show the bones beneath, hair darker than a raven’s wing curling around the soft curves of her jaw, and a quiet voice that lilted easily into melody… even those who could not see would find Yueying beautiful. When Kongming had remarked upon her looks, she had confessed that she had asked her father to lie. _I want no husband who desires me for my beauty,_ she had told him, her fingers curled inwards to dig nails into flesh. _I wish only one who looks at me, and prizes me, for my mind._

“You seem deep in thought, husband,” Yueying murmured. Kongming smiled, for he recognised that look. She had looked at him in the same way, then: with a gaze so sharp that pierced through him. At that moment, he had known: she had realised that he looked for a wife for the same reason she lied about her looks. For those like them, there was no other path than deceit to gain even a portion of what they desired.

That day, he had asked Master Huang for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Yueying added her own plea. Both of them knew all too well the rarity of understanding.

“Only admiring my wife’s beauty,” Kongming returned, lilting his lips so she would know it was a tease. Gently, he folded her sleeve back down. “Have you regrets?” 

“Is that not the question _I_ must ask of _you_?” Yueying shot back. “If not for the choices you have made, husband, you could have stood on the same ground as Lord Liu and his warriors, wielding a blade that would bring you great honour and your ancestors greater glory.”

“Alas,” Kongming declared, fanning himself with one hand even as he swept out the other. “My skin prefers cotton, chafing when encased in metal.” His lips widened further, enough for the corners to peek out through the sides of his fan. “But do not worry, Lady, for I would surely still have married you even if I had chosen a warrior’s path.”

“Ah, but you would not have, for I would not have agreed,” Yueying huffed, her own smile wide enough to show a hint of her uneven teeth. “Remember that my agreement was based on the merit of your mind.”

“What if my mind remained as sharp wielding a sword as it is now holding this fan?” He proffered it to her with his palm open, raising his own brow.

Yueying laughed, sharp and short and bitter. She took his fan and gently smacked his head. A feather jabbed at his nose, and it twitched as he fought not to sneeze. “You still would not,” Yueying said. The humour in her voice had died, leaving only dull-dark eyes. “For then you would be a warlord, and none who choose that path will deign to marry a clever wife.” 

She dropped the fan onto the board, scattering black and white stones until they laid on top of the lines bordering the tiles instead of the tiles themselves. Her smile widened, but there was still no mirth in it. “Cleverness makes for a poor pawn piece,” she finished. “That is not a fate I’d ever choose for myself.” 

“Perhaps if we are to discuss possibilities,” Kongming picked up his fan and started to idly shift the stones back to their proper places, “then perhaps you shall be the warlord, and I your strategist-wife.”

“That should be ideal indeed,” Yueying agreed, a hint of light appearing once more in her eyes. “Though I do not promise to be a warlord with eyes sharp enough to catch the light glinting from the blade of yours.” A pause. She chuckled, shoulders shaking. “Alas,” she echoed, “my hands were judged too small to properly wrap around the hilt of a sword, and my wrists too delicate to manoeuvre a spear.”

He flicked his eyes down to look at those limbs in question. She was right: they were fine-boned, well-made for the holding of books and needles and fans. Yet his own hands and wrists, though heavier-boned and thicker, were covered in the same brush-caused calluses.

 _Surely your father was mistaken,_ he wished to say, but he held his tongue. Yueying held her father in high esteem, he knew. More importantly, one should never speak ill of one’s father-in-law in front of one’s wife; that was too far beyond the realm of propriety for consideration.

Before he could even think of other words to fill the silence, however, there are two sharp raps on their front door, the sound loud enough to travel to the garden at the back of the house, where they were seated. Kongming blinked. “Are you expecting any more visits today?” he asked. 

“Few in the town have reasons to pay their visits to me,” Yueying pointed out. She took the leaf from the bowl and toyed with it between her fingertips. “Perhaps the Lord Governor has come calling again.”

In front of his wife, the friend who knew him best, Kongming did not resist the urge to roll his eyes. “How many times must a man refuse before his words are heeded?” 

“At least once more,” Yueying told him, arching a brow. She tapped the side of the board. “This will keep, husband, until you have fulfilled your duty as one who wishes to live upon Lord Liu Biao’s land.”

“I should enter myself into Lord Liu _Bei_ ’s service,” Kongming grumbled as he stood up. “It would at least free me from the Lord Governor’s incessant offers.”

It was not that he disliked the Lord Governor Liu Biao, Kongming reflected to himself as he headed for the door. It was simply that the Governor offered him an office in Jingzhou itself, to care for the province, and there was no challenge in that, for all Kongming would be doing was to retain stability, to ensure that all remained the same. It was a reason that spoke of nothing more than his own selfishness and egotism, yes, but was not the prevention of his death by boredom a necessity?

Perhaps, he thought, he should learn some honesty and be direct with the Lord Governor instead of obfuscating and misdirecting whenever he was asked. 

He shook his head free of the thoughts as he opened the door. Then he blinked. For instead of the Lord Governor, it was Lord Guan who stood behind the wood. “Forgive my intrusion,” the warrior greeted, bowing from the waist. His arms remained stiffly by his sides. 

“There is no need for such formality,” Kongming said, resisting the urge to take a step back. Gusts of wind whipped at his eyes from the fan in his hand. “Surely you are used to being welcome in all homes that you wish to visit, your lordship.”

“No,” Lord Guan stated, shaking his head. “To gain passage into homes using the blade I wield is nothing but tyranny.” A pause, and he ducked his head. His fingers twitched at his sides as if he wished to rub his neck, and yet did not dare. “It has been mere hours since I have last left your home. Now I request once more to be invited in. It is presumptuous enough already.”

Kongming stared. Perhaps the gods had been listening to his thoughts, for he had only just chastised himself for his pride – and, lo, here was a man who resembled well the paragon of humility. “Ah,” he said, momentarily at a loss for words.

Lifting his head, Lord Guan sighed. “My elder brother wished for me to tell you that I am here out of my own will,” he said. He _did_ rub at the back of his neck, then. “But, in truth, I am here at his behest, for both of us had noticed your surprise when he introduced me.” He paused, and added, softer: “Your wife’s, too.”

The gods had _definitely_ been listening, Kongming thought, barely resisting the urge to laugh. He raised his fan so he could peer over the feathers at Lord Guan. _It seems that Lord Liu has neglected to mention your honour and integrity,_ he almost said. He swallowed the words back for he knew that such men would only be discomfited by praise. 

Instead, he stepped aside and swept out his arm. “Your presence is very welcome in my home,” he murmured. He received another nod in reply, stiff with how Lord Guan’s bones had seemingly been replaced by lead, before the other man stepped into the house after removing his shoes. 

Kongming headed towards the kitchen, to bring out the tea that Yueying had surely started preparing by now. But he was not even halfway there when he heard Lord Guan said, “My apologies.” 

Lord Guan standing in the middle of the hall, his eyes fixed upon the open door of the garden, through which the edges of the _weiqi_ board peeked through. “I have interrupted your game,” he continued. Yueying had appeared at the kitchen’s entrance, then, drawn close surely by the sudden display of humility, and Lord Guan turned to her. He offered a small bow, fingers splayed on top of his heart. “My apologies to you as well, Lady Huang.”

“Most would have thought that my husband was playing alone,” Yueying noted, voice too light to carry the unspoken words, _For who would be fool enough to play such a game with his wife?_ She shook her head at Kongming’s offer to take the new tray of tea in her hands. Instead, she tilted her head minutely to the side, turning his attention to the door leading to the garden.

“There are two cups on the table, and the tea in both have already gone cold,” Lord Guan replied. Was that a hint of a wry smile on his lips? “It is clear, Lady, that you had been fulfilling your duties in ways that left no room for the care of a kettle.”

Raising his fan, Kongming muffled his laughter behind the feathers. He led them out to the garden, following Yueying’s suggestion. “Humble to the point of self-effacing, honest to the point of bluntness. An astute warrior, one named the best of his lord’s army by the lord himself.” He swung his wrist outward, sweeping up the _weiqi_ board along with the two bowls of stones that accompanied it, setting all of them on the ground.

“Do you own more virtues, Lord Guan, or will you now show mercy and cease reflecting to me my own inadequacies?”

Lord Guan did not scowl, but the furrow between his brows and the snap of his sleeves around his wrist spoke eloquently of his discomfort. “This nobody is honoured with an elder brother who loves him too well,” he said. The lines of his neck and shoulders were so straight that they seemed on the verge of breaking. “I do not deserve such high praise, for surely there are plenty of others who have greater virtues and higher talent than myself.”

“We would trust in your word, my lord,” Yueying said, setting the tea tray down on the table with a small click. Kongming noticed that the leaf was neither in her bowl nor her hair, disappeared amidst the others scattered on the garden’s soil. “If by your speech you had not proved my husband correct in his judgment.”

“Please,” Lord Guan said. He hesitated for a moment, even teeth biting down on his bottom lip. “There is no need for such formality. I am no lord.” 

Honesty had a fault; it allowed those with it to fall far too quickly into the tricks of mischief. Kongming laid his fan over his mouth so he could flash a smirk at his wife behind it. “Which title shall we use for you, then?”

Kongming could see the moment when Lord Guan realised that Kongming and Yueying were still standing and looking at him with expectant eyes, when he realised that, no matter his humility, there was a difference between their statuses that could not be so easily breached. He ducked his head, hand scrubbing at the back of his neck as he hurriedly took a seat upon a wooden stool. As expected of a warrior, he chose one that faced the house and allowed him full view of the path beside it. “My elder brother has raised me to the rank of General,” he offered.

“General Guan,” Yueying acknowledged. She picked up the teapot, lifting it while Kongming took his own seat to the General’s right. Steam curled up from the cups when tea was poured. She passed a cup first to Kongming, who handed it to his guest as etiquette required.

Taking the cup, General Guan glanced at him. “You have a beautiful garden,” he said. Each syllable was so stilted that they seemed to be forced out from between gritted teeth.

Surely a warrior would still know the basics of manners, especially one who was the brother of a Lord. Surely a man with such pale, long-fingered hands would know how to hold a teacup without looking as if he feared he would drop it. Yet the General held himself so tightly that Kongming could not help but think of a deer that had caught the sound of a nocking arrow.

“Thank you,” Kongming murmured. It was true, he supposed. Though his inheritance could not afford to build him a large house – his and Yueying’s home was barely more than a shack, with a thatched roof that leaked on the nights when the storms raged through the lands – but there was enough land left over for plants. Herbs and _penjing_ for Kongming, lining the insides of the wooden fences; fruits and vegetables for Yueying, crowding around the middle. They were now seated in the lone table in the garden tucked in the corner. Made of unpolished stone, the shade of the trees made it cool to the touch. 

Yueying placed her cup back on to the stone, the ceramic clicking dully. “You are here on Lord Liu’s behalf, General?”

“Yes,” the General nodded, his open face showing clear his relief that he could now return to his purpose. After a moment where his eyes flickered to stare at the rim of his cup, he huffed out a soft laugh. “Though now that I have disturbed both of you with my presence, I realise that I have very little to say.” He lifted his gaze. There was a hint of a crooked smile at the corner of his mouth. 

“I was born a mere farmer’s son, Mister Zhuge, Lady Huang,” he said, voice soft. “Now I am a General. I am a sworn brother of a man whose blood ran from the same river as the Emperor’s. Does that not prove to you that Lord Liu is a man worthy of your loyalty?”

 _Yes._ Kongming blew air over the top of his cup, keeping his eyes carefully on the General. “There are those who would say,” he started carefully, “that to hand the reins of the country to one who would reject the precepts was to spell the end of the Han, and hand us over to the barbarians.”

General Guan hummed under his breath, and said, “Once the books of strategies sat alongside Confucius and Mencius in a scholar’s library. Once, the warrior would name his forms after his self-crafted poetry.” He sipped his tea. “If we speak of traditions and precepts, surely those popular in the past decades are not enough.” He ran his fingertip over the rim of his cup. “When I swore my loyalty, my brother told me that the Mandate of Heaven had not left the Han dynasty, and would not as long as blood still ran in his veins.” He laid his hands on the stone. His eyes were bright with earnestness. 

“He promised to bring it back to the heights it reached when Emperor Wu was seated on the throne.”

Kongming’s breath caught in his throat. Emperor Wu, the greatest of all Han Emperors… Lord Liu had set himself an incredibly lofty goal, to say the least.

“Is that not arrogance?” Yueying asked, voice no louder than a murmur.

Turning to her, General Guan shook his head. “Would it not be arrogance instead if he refused the call of his blood?” he asked her in return. “It was not by his own will that he took on such a duty, but by the necessity of his blood.”

Kongming laughed. “That is a contradiction,” he drawled, turning his fan such that the feathers pointed at the General. “He raised you above the station of your birth, but he uses his own to justify his wars?” 

“That is not what I said,” General Guan said. He was frowning now, brows heavily creased, but his voice was still even enough that every syllable sounded crisp. “His abilities and duties are blood-given, a gift from his parents and ancestors to honour their names.” He ducked his head down. When he spoke again, his voice was far softer. “The strength of my wrist that could hold a blade well is the same. My parents’ lowly status as farmers should not blight the blessings they have given me.” 

_Ah._ Here was something new and unexpected. Perhaps those men who would condemn Lord Liu would also decry General Guan’s words to be mere ink on paper, easy to smudge and be thrown away. Yet on Confucius’s words they had built their civilisation; on those water-weak foundations they had elevated themselves above barbarians. Kongming was a scholar of history, and so he knew: blades might win a battle of a generation, but it was through words that the war for the future was won.

Here are Lord Liu’s words, formed by General Guan’s gentle tongue: a world where one need not be trapped by the stations of one’s parents, but instead in which one could find flight possible with the abilities one gained in use of the gifts one was given. He opened his mouth. 

“Forgive me, but I still do not see.” Yueying’s voice was very soft, and she hid her face behind her cup. When the men’s eyes turned to her, she gave them a smile without any light in it. “What heights can one reach, General, when one is already judged at birth to be capable of naught but lowliness? Are we not still at the mercy of the higher-born eyes that look upon us? Surely those are the howling gales that would set us free.”

“Lord Liu is just, and he is fair,” General Guan said, his words thrumming with the strength of a new-made promise. “Those winds might be gentle, but for those of us born below the high heights of an Emperor’s seat, are they not all that we need?” 

Long moments passed in silence. Kongming looked at the tea leaves swirling at the base of his cup. Finally, his wife put down her cup and turned to him. “You wish to go,” she stated. 

She knew him too well; perhaps better than he knew himself. The sharpness of a man’s eyes was, after all, inevitably blunted when he looked upon himself. He put his cup down. “If you wish for us to stay, then we will stay,” he promised. Though Master Huang had laughed and called it strange when he had realised, Kongming valued Yueying’s views, especially when it involved a future that involved them both.

“I do not refuse,” Yueying said. Her gaze was fixed on the table, and did not meet his even when he rested his hand on her wrist. He heard her unspoken words, nonetheless: she did not _agree,_ either. “Lord Guan is right.” Her eyes were dull-dark when she raised her head. “A chance for her husband to rise above the station of his birth; a just and fair lord to serve. What else could a common wife ask for?” 

General Guan looked at her for a long moment. There was no rancour in his eyes for a wife who has spoken out of turn, no disdain for a husband who allowed his wife to do such a thing. Oddly enough, there was only a strange, half-hidden sorrow tucked in the shadows beneath his lashes. “Please grant my elder brother a chance to earn your loyalty,” he said, “Lady Huang. Mister Zhuge.”

“I will,” Kongming said. He reached out his hand and rested his fingers above Yueying’s pulse. It thrummed with an odd, tripping beat that he had never once felt from her. He took a breath, noted that General Guan had averted his eyes, and said, “We will.”

Yueying lowered her head, the very image of a subservient wife. “Yes.”

***

 _The four hundred and fifth year of the Han Dynasty, early spring_  
_Jingzhou, the future Kingdom of Shu Han_

The gates to Huang Chengyan’s house were unlatched, as always, without lock and chain anywhere in sight. The stones of the path were littered with fallen leaves, some of which had rotted so much that only their spines remained. Sweeping them aside with her feet, Yueying headed up to the house. When she pushed at the wooden door, it swung open with the loud shriek of the hinges.

She did not call out for her father; if he had chosen to not notice the sound of the door’s opening, then he wished not to be disturbed. Instead, she headed to the kitchen. The floor sent up tiny plumes of dust with her every step, and the hems of her robes were quickly stained. She found the broom in the dusty corner in which it had always been tucked, and exited the house again for the garden. She started sweeping.

Orange light was streaking across the sky when she heard the thud of a heavy door opening and closing. Yueying wiped at her brow with her dirty sleeve, dipping the cloth she had been using to wipe the kitchen floor – after sweeping the garden as well as the house – before she lifted her head. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth when she noticed that her father was standing in the middle of the room, blinking at the sight of the sudden cleanliness and order that now assaulted him.

“There are plenty in the village who are willing to lend a hand to a famed scholar in the upkeep of his home,” Yueying said. Her back and knees ached as she rocked to her feet, but those pains were common enough to be ignored. When her father turned to her, she widened her smile. “They would be willing to do so without being paid, especially if you offer to teach their Alpha children as compensation.”

“Daughter,” her father said. He dipped his head slightly as she bowed to him. “You would suggest that I suffer through the howling of brats just so I can have a clean house that I will barely see?”

Yueying cocked her head. She headed over the tiny basin she had placed on the table, dipping her hands inside and scrubbing her fingers to clean them of the dirt. “It will soon be a necessity,” she said, voice soft.

Her father’s eyes narrowed. “This is not a casual visit born out of boredom, then,” he said.

“Perhaps it still is,” Yueying said, deliberately keeping her voice light. She swirled the water in the basin for a moment, looking at her slightly-chipped nails and darkened knuckles. “There is only so much of my lord husband’s cottage that I can clean before I grow bored of examining the thwarted spiders in their corners.” 

When she received nothing but expectant silence in response, Yueying sighed. Turning, she met her father’s eyes for a moment before she bowed her head and bent one knee. The thud of the wood echoed in the large, empty house. “Your daughter has come to bid farewell, father,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “Tomorrow, I will follow my lord husband out of Jingzhou, and I will not return.”

From beneath the veil of her messy hair, Yueying watched as her father’s nostrils flared when he registered her words. Her heart ached for him: she was his only child, for her mother had died giving birth to a stillborn younger brother and her father had never wanted to leave his books long enough to look for another wife.

“That is unexpected,” her father said. “Has Kongming finally decided to seek his fortune?”

“Fortune has come seeking him instead,” Yueying replied. “The warlord Liu Bei came to seek his aid, and my lord husband agreed.”

“Liu Bei,” her father murmured, stepping forward. Knowing her cue, Yueying reached out her hands so he could pull her to her feet. “One of those who answered the Emperor’s call for aid during the Yellow Turban Rebellion, wasn’t it? The one who is rumoured to carry imperial blood in his veins?”

Yueying blinked. Her father might as well be a hermit, venturing out of the house on rare occasions for more books and rarer still for food; for him to be able to immediately place Lord Liu’s name meant that the man’s fame was indeed greater than Yueying had ever imagined.

At the sight of her confusion, her father laughed. “Now that you are married and I am left alone, I have taken to the habit of inviting friends for tea,” he said, lips twitching. His hand closed around her elbow, leading her towards the broad table where they used to have meals. “One of them, Decao, frequently updates me on the news of the world that, he has said, he could hear from the whispers of the winds in that bamboo grove of his.”

Decao? Yueying wreaked her mind to find the surname that went with that name. After a moment, she found it: ah, her father meant _Sima Hui_ , Kongming’s old teacher himself. 

“I doubt that news can be carried by bamboo,” Yueying said, voice dry. “Surely it is Master Sima’s wife who told him of the happenings of the world.”

“Ah, but it sounds far sweeter to say that the winds whispered,” her father returned, grinning now. “Who wants to be known as a husband who pays so much heed to the words of their wife, after all?”

Yueying lowered her eyes. “Who indeed?” she echoed. As she passed by her father’s usual seat at the head of the table, she slipped her elbow out of his grasp and headed to the fireplace. There was still water in the bucket that she had fetched from the well, so she dipped the kettle in and placed it on top of the burning wood. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as her father steepled his fingers, appearing deep in thought. She turned back to her chore of nudging the fire higher, for she knew that she should not disturb him.

When steam started to curl from the kettle’s spout, her father sighed. “Your leaving means that I will not be able to see you whenever I wish, and I am much grieved by that,” he said. His dark eyes, shadowed under his heavily-creased brows, were sharp upon her. “But, perhaps, this is a greater boon than I have ever expected.”

He fell silent. Yueying picked up the kettle and brought it over to the table. Ladling a few spoonfuls of tea leaves into the pot, she poured the hot water in before immediately tossing it out. The scent of fresh green filled the air. 

“After my wife died, there were two options left for me,” her father continued, with his eyes fixed in the empty air. “Either I could remarry in hopes of gaining an heir, or I could resign myself to being a half-forgotten tablet in the ancestral hall of my brothers’ children, dependent on them to remember to place offerings for me after my death.”

Yueying nodded; this was a familiar story. She filled the pot to the brim this time before replacing the lid and returning the kettle back to its usual place. 

“But now…” Chuckling to himself, he lifted his eyes to meet hers as she slid into her usual place two seats down from him. “The Heavens have smiled upon me, for my daughter has grown to be beautiful, and so she has married a talented man who has caught the eyes of a great lord whose deeds might one day be writ in history.”

In the midst of lifting the pot to pour the tea, Yueying froze. She blinked at her father. “Your daughter is slow and stupid, father,” she murmured, “for she does not understand your meaning.”

Humming under his breath, her father patted her hand gently. “Lord Liu Bei’s future is bright,” he said. “It carries a searing light that can pierce through the dusty darkness of the books I have long surrounded myself with. When the time comes for the annals of this age to be written, he will have a place in them that is far greater than a mere footnote.”

Yueying poured the tea. The scent of it – sweet and thick – filled the air, without the underlying hint of must that she had grown up with. Her father, it seemed, had truly not been left very lonely since the last time he visited.

“Kongming’s mind is as quick as a rushing stream, and his knowledge has the depths of the ocean,” her father said, his fingers tracing the rim of the cup. “He will shine in Liu Bei’s service, and through that, become more than a footnote in history himself.” He lifted his eyes. “If you play your cards right, Yueying, then both of us will have a single line, at the very least. Far more than most can claim.”

Lifting her cup, Yueying hid her thinning lips behind it. She breathed in the scent of the leaves. “If I play my cards right, father?”

His eyes flicked towards her for a moment, and Yueying ducked her head. Even in that split second, she could feel the weight of his chiding. “Wives of great lords and generals have more eyes upon them, and hence a higher chance of being remembered, especially in this time of constant chaos,” he said. His tone reminded her of the few times when he had entered a village’s classroom to give a lecture; she was almost surprised that he hadn’t stood and started to pace around the room. 

“None should forget Lady Jiang the Chaste, wife of King Zhao of Chu, who stood atop a sinking platform, waiting for her husband’s orders to be properly delivered to her. Though she drowned, she was remembered even now for her devotion to both propriety and her husband.” Her father folded his hands atop the table. “Do not forget Lady Bo, wife of Duke Gong of Song. She obeyed the edicts that she should not be unaccompanied out of the palace so well that, even as her rooms were burning down, she refused to take a single step outside alone.”

“They are wives of great merit indeed,” Yueying murmured. “Your lowly daughter does not know if she has the mettle to imitate.” 

Sipping at his tea, her father shook his head. “Alas, for not only is my daughter lowly,” he drawled out the two syllables, “but she is truly slow indeed, no matter the praises given to her for her intelligence.” He placed the cup onto the desk, and finally turned to meet her eyes. “Tell me, Yueying, do you believe that only the wives of lords and emperors could be worthy of such strength of will? Do you believe that common wives could be capable of the same?”

 _Common wives do not have nearly as many rules to follow, or as many examples they are driven to emulate_. Yueying washed the words down with tea. “Of course, father,” she said instead. “Did Confucius not state that it is possible for anyone to reach the greatest heights of behaviour, regardless of the status or secondary gender with which they are born?”

Her father sighed. “You can quote from the _Analects,_ yet there is so much that you have forgotten.” He waved a hand. “It does not matter.” _For this is already more than I should be able to expect from you_ , Yueying heard. She carefully made sure that her lips did not twitch. 

“Once, you recognised me to be clever enough to allow me to do as I wish when choosing a husband,” she said, sipping once more at her tea. It had taken her years of convincing: years in which she had refused to leave the house except fully veiled; years when she had taken every step outside the house tripping over her feet like a graceless drunk. “Do you regret indulging your lowly daughter so much, father?”

“Seeking praise is unworthy,” her father said pointedly. Yueying lowered her eyes, and he sighed again. “You are clever, Yueying, but you know the cleverness of one destined to be a wife is far different from that of one who will be a husband.”

In all of her years of study, in all of the books she had read in his library, she had never once found the reason why. Still, she said, “Of course I do.”

Patting her hand, her father stood. Yueying hurriedly placed her cup down, barely remembering that it should not make a sound, before she got to her feet as well, stepping to the side and bowing so he could sweep past her to the door. “Remember my parting words to you, my daughter,” her father said, his footsteps like resounding punctuation after every word. “Not only does the future of my spirit depend on you, the emulation of ideals is the righteous thing to do.”

At the door to the house, he stopped. He placed a hand on the frame before he turned back to her. Yueying, three steps behind him like she had been trained since she could walk, blinked up at him.

“Don’t forget to give Kongming children as well,” her father said. “Mencius’s mother might not have her name recorded in history, but all know the three moves she made to ensure that her son concentrated on his studies. There is righteousness and legacy down that path for you, as well.”

 _But not for you_ , Yueying continued for him even as she bowed again in acknowledgment of his instructions. None, after all, remembered Mencius’s maternal grandfather, great as the man’s fame might have been in his lifetime. The sacrifices Mencius’s mother had made, uprooting her life three times for her son’s sake, were credited to her and her alone.

She left her father’s house with slow footsteps, eyes fixed on the ground to take in the newly-washed stones that lined the path. In but a few days, they would be dirty and dusty again, and she wondered – worried – over who her father would find to clean his house. If, one day, he would truly have to give lessons to some of the village children just so their mothers would ensure that he did not live in squalor. 

Shaking her head, she dismissed the thought. Her father desired for her to be a good wife to a great lord, and a wise mother to their future children. To be the ideal of both, she knew, she must forget her father. She would always be _Huang_ Yueying, but she would always be better known as Zhuge Kongming’s wife.

When she arrived back home, she found her husband bent over his potted trees, trimming them in preparation to give them away before their departure tomorrow. There were streaks of dirt on his forehead and cheeks, and his pale sleeves were stained as well. He lifted his head in acknowledgment of her entrance into the garden, and cocked it to the side.

“My father,” she answered his unspoken question, “reminds me that I must give you children, such that I might follow the examples of Lady Jiang the Chaste and Lady Bo.”

Kongming opened his mouth, and closed it. “We must have children,” he said, slow enough to emphasise every syllable, “so that one day you might drown or be burnt to death?”

“Precisely,” Yueying drawled. When he continued to stare at her, eyes unblinking like those of a terrified deer, she laughed. “Granted, he did not couch the lesson in that particular way, but…” 

She paused. She thought of her father again, in his large, dusty house surrounded by books. She recalled the grey in his hair and beard, and how she had always wondered if it was dust or if it was age. She looked at herself, still stained at the filth of cleaning and washing, and noted that her father had not said a word about the impropriety of her appearance out in public.

Shaking her head, she headed over to the fruit trees she had planted with her own hands. This early in spring, the branches were half-bare. She reached out and plucked a leaf from it, tucking it into her messy, tangled hair. “I’ve never liked any of those stories,” she said.

“No,” Kongming returned. He had set the shears down to watch her, his hands folded in his sleeves. There was something strange in the twist of his smile, a shadow that reached out to twist at Yueying’s heart and strangled her lungs with a sense of foreboding.

“I don’t suppose that you did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Emperor Wu of Han](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Wu_of_Han) is at least fifty percent of the reason why the Chinese call themselves the “Han people,” and why Confucius doctrines run so deep within the culture. He ruled during the heights of the Han Empire, and his expansion of the territory of the dynasty is what demarcates the borders of ‘China’ up until today. The expansion of trade with the rest of Eurasia during his rule is also a defining factor of the ‘Han Chinese’ identity. He lived during 156 to 87 BC.
> 
> Lady Jiang, Lady Bo, and Mencius’s mother all existed in history, and their stories are precisely as recounted by both Yueying and her father. Their stories, and stories of women like them, are recorded in the Han historian Liu Xiang’s [_Biographies of Exemplary Women_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biographies_of_Exemplary_Women), which is one of the great Chinese classics.
> 
> Everything discussed by Yueying and her father regarding ancestors, tablets, and offerings can be found in this article on Wikipedia: [Ancestor veneration in China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestor_veneration_in_China).


	3. Part II: 当自警, “to be alert to yourself”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** The second scene includes in-depth discussion of kidnapping, child marriage, and implied rape of eleven-year-old child. That eleven-year-old child is now fifteen, and she has pretty severe Stockholm’s Syndrome regarding her situation, including making excuses for implied verbal abuse. That husband’s name is Zhang Fei. This story, and this person, has been taken wholesale from history.

_The four hundred and sixth year of the Han Dynasty, late autumn  
A village at the outskirts of Xie County, Hedong, the future Kingdom of Wei_

“Come on now, Zilong!” General Zhang boomed, his characteristic roar made even louder by the wine-inflicted redness of his face. General Guan, seated beside him, tilted his head away, one finger rubbing at his ear as he grimaced. General Zhang, predictably, didn’t notice, and yelled even louder: “Surely _one_ of them have caught your eye!”

General Zhao, seated opposite General Zhang and beside Kongming himself, winced. He leaned back as if General Zhang’s voice was a physical blow. Or, Kongming thought, he was trying to avoid the spray of spittle that now littered the table. “My heart is already full of my devotion to Lord Liu’s cause,” he said, voice half-muffled behind his cup of _baijiu_. “Marriage will have to wait until my Lord is named Emperor by all under the skies.”

“That will take decades!” General Zhang exclaimed. Kongming subtly nudged his chair further backwards, getting himself out of the way as the older General leaned forward, nearly shoving his face into General Zhao’s. “You will be an old man by then, with all of your good looks gone. What fun will that be, then? How will you continue your family’s line that way?”

“I have Alpha siblings,” General Zhao pointed out. “My ancestors are well-provided for by my nephews and nieces. Their tablets would be kept pristine, and their ghosts will not starve during the Festival.” Eyes fixed upon his own cup, General Guan seemed to twitch.

Opening his mouth, General Zhang seemed to make a protest. But his eldest brother laid a hand on top of his arm, silencing him with a shake of his head. “Yide, enough,” Lord Liu chided, his voice soft and gentle. “Let Zilong make his own choices. It is not our place to interfere with such personal affairs.” It was not _General Zhang’s_ place, Kongming corrected, for it was certainly Lord Liu’s. So far away from his own parents, General Zhao would have to ask Lord Liu to serve as his emissary if he wished to ask for permission to marry any beta or omega that caught his gaze. 

“Fine,” General Zhang huffed. He settled back into his seat. His eyes, half-hidden beneath heavy, thick brows, darted around the room. When they landed on General Guan, the latter raised an eyebrow.

“Yide,” he said, drawling out the name in a way that could seem teasing if not for his solemn eyes and unsmiling lips. “After haranguing Zilong so, will you now lecture _me_ about my lack of a bride?”

General Zhang blinked. “This little brother will not dare,” he said, hands immediately shooting up in surrender. After a moment, he dropped his chin onto a fist, eyes boring into his second older brother’s. “Though you have to have noticed, er-ge, that even the wedded betas and omegas were staring at you.”

“Likely in confusion,” General Guan waved a dismissive hand. When General Zhang blinked at him, clearly uncomprehending, he explained: “They likely imagined me to be taller. Broader, too.” His hand waggled in the air below his chin for a moment. “Possibly with a long beard.” He tipped his head back and drained his cup of wine in one quick gulp.

There was no flush upon his cheeks or slur in his words. There was not even a tremble in his fingers as he poured himself another cup. But, Kongming cocked his head to the side, General Guan was tipsy _,_ at very least, with how much he had already drunk.

“Second General,” General Zhao said. His hand closed around General Guan’s wrist. Not for the first time, Kongming noticed just how pale and smooth the latter’s skin was – as unblemished as a well-born bride on their wedding day. Despite the long, heavy glaive that rarely left his side, his knuckles did not protrude, and were without scars or calluses. “Forgive me for my presumption, but aren’t you drinking too much and too quickly?”

Looking at him out of the corner of his eyes, General Guan tossed the new cup back as well. He shook off General Zhao’s grip and wiped his mouth with the back of that hand. “Perhaps,” he said. His hands slapped down against the table, making the porcelain cups and bottles rattle, as he stood. “It’s long past time that I retire and remove my foul mood from your celebrations. Have a good evening, gentlemen.”

Throughout the months since Kongming had left Jingzhou to follow Lord Liu in his travels, he had begun to count the moments of when he could see those strange sorrowful shadows in General Guan’s eyes. He could not help it – they always appeared so suddenly, as if General Guan kept his tragedies behind a heavy dam in his heart, and they, at moments unexpected to even himself, grew so high that the waters seeped through to show. Kongming saw them again now as General Guan bowed to them and turned his back; saw the hints of them in the hands clenched into loose fists at his sides as the General walked steadily away.

“Er-di told me, once, that he was born in Hedong,” Lord Liu said. His eyes were fixed upon the door that had closed behind his younger brother’s retreating figure. “Even when I asked, he would not tell me the county he hailed from, much less the village.” He folded his hands in front of him and sighed. “I suspect that I have found the answer today.”

“Here?” General Zhang yelped. He winced – it seemed that, for once, he noticed the volume of his own voice – and ducked his head down. “He’s from _here_? This very village?” Even when whispering, he was loud.

“What can we do but guess, when he will not tell us?” Lord Liu asked. He brushed a strand of hair away from his eyes. “Er-di is an honest man, but with honesty does not come openness. No matter how much I wish that it does.”

General Zhang frowned, looking troubled. Kongming supposed that, for a simple man like him, he could not imagine keeping secrets that troubled him when there were brothers he could consult to help resolve them. He was different from his second brother that way: though they were both honest men, General Zhang was akin to the staffs of the spears he wielded – its purpose clear to baldness – while General Guan was the blade of his glaive, retaining its shape in the hands of whoever who took it, but reflecting their faces instead of his own.

“Such troubles wear on the soul,” General Zhao murmured. His dark eyes, heavily-lashed, were troubled, and his well-shaped lips were pressed flat. After a moment, he shook his head. “It is foolish and insolent of me to worry, I know, especially in front of both you and the Third General, my lord, and yet…”

Yet there was a particular draw to General Guan that caught the eye of every single Alpha in the army, Kongming finished for him. Betas, too, particularly the men. Perhaps it was the incongruity of him: the ferocious warrior with the skin of a merchant’s pampered omega child and a lean frame that was reminiscent of Xi Shi herself; the respected General feared by their enemies who never hesitated to raise his voice in battle and in training, but whose lips were as full as those of delicate virgins whose beauty was rhapsodised in dirty drinking songs.

Sometimes, Kongming liked to spend time with the horses, reading or meditating while surrounded by their peaceful presence. At those times, he would overhear the guiltily-murmured confessions of the soldiers to each other: they found General Guan so stunning that they had to exert their fullest efforts to not trip into ruts for his sake. He had heard, too, the incredulous whispers of the same soldiers: surely it did not made sense, that it was their Lord’s warrior brother who made them curb their lusts instead of his wives or concubines.

There was a possible reason for it, the most logical that his mind had found. Yet it could not be the truth. The idea itself was ludicrous. If one such as Kongming had wrists unfitting a blade, then General Guan’s hands that could hold his glaive so well could never belong to one that was lower than himself. It simply could not be. No matter the hints writ in the curve of that smooth jaw that had never seen a hint of stubble. 

“Your worry speaks well of your character, Zilong,” Lord Liu was saying. After a moment to make sure that his loyal General was set at ease, he turned his eyes to Kongming. “But this talk of wives reminded me, Kongming. Has Lady Huang told you anything of how Lady Mi is faring?”

In these past months since they left Jingzhou, Yueying had taken on the role of serving and guiding the wives of the army. It was not a place that she was assigned to by Lord Liu, or by his first wife Lady Gan – neither of them seemed to understand enough of Yueying’s mind to know the purpose she could serve – but one she seemed to have found for herself. It suited her well enough.

Kongming smiled, and inclined his head. “Lady Mi misses her brothers,” he said softly. “She misses, too, her hometown of Qu. But she is a sister of warlords, and the life of a traveller settles easily enough upon her.” He straightened and picked up the near-empty pot of tea. “Yueying believes that she will feel safe enough in her surroundings to welcome you again into her quarters, my Lord.”

“Good,” Lord Liu said. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Kongming took in the deepening furrow between his brows, thinking, before the pieces clicked into place.

“Someone in this village has caught _your_ eye, my lord,” he pointed out, voice wry.

Lord Liu chuckled, ducking his head down as Generals Zhang and Zhao stared at him. “Am I truly that overt in my interests?” he asked, voice wry. “Yes, actually. There is a girl. The one most beautiful in the entire village, I have heard from her parents.”

“Every parent thinks their child is the most beautiful,” Kongming pointed out, “especially when one as esteemed as yourself has shown an interest in bringing her into your house.” He paused, taking a sip of his tea. “What is her name?”

“Qilan,” Lord Liu replied, his lips twitching up slightly. “I would not call her beautiful, exactly, but there is a sweetness to her that is appealing.” He threw back his cup of wine and let out a pleased, heavy sound. “I will ask Ladies Gan and Mi if they are willing. Qilan will be their youngest sister; if I invite her to be one of my house, there will be need for them to care for her.”

It was moment like these that Kongming was reminded of his reasons to join Lord Liu. _A fair and just lord_ , General Guan had called him, and all that Kongming had seen of Lord Liu had proven those words to be right. Like here: few husbands would bother asking for the opinions of his already-wed wives before taking another, much less a concubine.

“I wish you luck in your endeavours, my lord,” Kongming said, sketching a salute with his fist slapping against his palm. “Though I doubt that you will need much of it.”

The conversation turned, then, towards their impressions of the village. There was not much to talk about, especially since none of them would broach the subject of strategies and tactics to use in case Cao Cao attacked while General Guan was absent. If his mood was already dark, such a damning insult would only worsen it.

Without battles and war to speak of, they exhausted their conversational topics quickly enough. Kongming was in the midst of picking up the cups and bottles – to transfer them to the kitchen where they would be washed by the villagers who had volunteered to house them – when another hand, broader and darker than his own, shooed his own away and wrapped around the gathered bottles.

“General Zhao,” Kongming said, eyes widening. He had watched this man leave with Lord Liu and General Zhang out of the door, so what was he doing here? He slowly withdrew his hands, eyes wide and staring. “Is there something you need?”

“Nothing except for your time, Chief Strategist Zhuge,” General Zhao returned. His dark eyes were so bright with mirth that it turned the title he used into a quiet tease. Kongming barely managed to stifle the hitch of his breath. “Will you allow me to walk you back to your quarters?”

Kongming lived with Yueying on the opposite side of the village from General Zhao: the General had insisted upon living with the soldiers on the village with the soldiers, while Kongming was installed with Lord Liu in the village head’s own home, as benefitting Lord Liu’s station. He stared down at the small tower of cups on the table. 

There were choices he made long ago. Choices that allowed him to hold a fan and book, choices that disallowed his eyes to turn towards soldiers and generals both. He let out a breath. “Is it something that we could not have discussed in front of Lord Liu and General Zhang?”

General Zhao paused. Then he sighed, tugging his sleeves back away from his wrists before he gathered all of the wine bottles into his hands. The muscles of his forearms flexed as he lifted them up. Kongming wrenched his eyes up to the General’s face, and nearly took a step back when he realised those dark-piercing eyes were fixed upon him. He returned his gaze back to the cups instead, picking them up. They rattled between his fingers.

“It is not a secret from them,” General Zhao said. He started walking to the kitchen, his long legs striding silently on the wooden floorboards. The ceramic he carried made no sound. “But I have overstepped the boundaries of my lowly station already, and I do not wish to take advantage of Lord Liu’s kindness or General Zhang’s patience.”

The Third General _had_ patience? Kongming turned the words into a soundless huff, shaking his head. “You fret over General Guan,” he guessed. “And you wish to unburden your mind to me, such that it could allow itself to rest.”

Throwing his head back, General Zhao laughed. He grinned out of the corner of his mouth. “Surely it is not that Lord Liu and me are obvious in our intentions, Mister Zhuge, but that you have the ability to read minds.”

Gently placing the wine cups into the bucket designated for them by the village head’s wife, Kongming made a show of adjusting his sleeves. “This lowly one will not dare to claim such a skill,” he intoned, bowing with his hand flat over his ribs. When General Zhao chuckled again, he tried to stifle the rising smile. “What is it that weighs so heavily on you?”

General Zhao didn’t answer him, merely turning around. They exited the building with the kitchen and the dining area, heading out into the chilly night. Kongming folded his hands into his sleeves, nails biting into the soft flesh between the thin bones of his wrists, as the General led him to the garden, waving a hand towards the stone. As propriety demanded, Kongming waited for the General to take his seat before he folded his knees. The bench was small; their bodies were barely an inch apart. Kongming reminded himself once more of the choices he had made. He fixed his eyes ahead.

The village head had tried her best, but her lack of a scholar’s education was obvious in her garden: fruit trees and herb bushes lay in neat rows, separated by lines of resting earth. This late in autumn, frost was already biting at the branches. There were no buds strong enough to brave the cold sear of the whipping winds.

“I was born in Zhending County, in Changshan,” General Zhao said. He waved in the direction of the bright North Star overhead. “If you follow that star and travel for a few weeks on horseback, you would find the village where I was born.” He paused for a moment before he chuckled, tipping his head back. “When I was young, I was considered strange among the other children. Even my elder brothers and sisters would sometimes look at me askance.” He glanced sideways at Kongming. “Can you make a guess why?” 

“Perhaps it is because you are so tall,” Kongming said lightly. General Zhao was at least a couple of inches taller than General Zhang, who towered over most of the army. “You would have stood out wherever you went, thus all eyes could not help but turn towards you.”

Blinking, General Zhao stared at him. After a moment, he let out a bark of laughter, shaking his head. “It is said that those with wisdom are without wit, and those with wit are without wisdom,” he said. “But it seems now, Mister Zhuge, that you are one of the few who own both.” He paused. Kongming swallowed back his instinctive retort, and dug his nails deeper into his skin so he could not reach out. 

“You see, I was strange for how I took to the sword as well as I did to the books.” General Zhao brushed his hand over his face, as if tucking away a stray strand of hair, though his topknot was still neat. His smile turned wry, and sorrow folded itself into the corners. “Even as I learned the blood-made bonds I share with my family even now, I learned far too well the taste of loneliness on my tongue.”

 _Ah_. Kongming lowered his eyes as pieces fell into place. “You worry over General Guan, for you see the same loneliness in his eyes,” he said, speaking lowly so they would not risk being overheard. They, below General Guan in status, would only be seen as presumptuous in their worries. “The loneliness felt when one is surrounded by those who love one and whom one loves – and yet those beloved presences only strengthen the bitterness.”

Looking at him out of the corner of his eyes, General Zhao asked, “Do you know the same taste, too?” His voice, usually so strong and firm, now carried a tremulous note. “Or do you read not only the minds of men, but their hearts as well?”

Kongming stared down at the soil beneath his feet. He nudged at a spot with his toes, loosening the grains and staining the tips of his socks. He thought of himself, his hands burdened with the threads of the choices that curled up his sleeves to wind around his throat. He thought of Yueying, falling into deceit in hope of finding someone, anyone, who would make the effort to understand.

“You praise me too highly,” he said finally. The silence had grown too great, too heavy, threatening to drown. “There are many I know whose tongues are roughened by the taste of loneliness, and thus my own eyes know it well.” It was, he knew, a poor answer. But the choices he had made in his life had set wires upon the vines of truth twining in his heart, and if he allowed them to loosen, he would become naught but a worthless weed. 

Dark eyes bored into his. Kongming raised his head. The shadows of the fallen night had sharpened the angles of General Zhao’s face, and the moonlight was caught within his eyes. With the spiking shadows of his lashes slashing over his high cheekbones, he was beautiful. 

“Perhaps General Guan feels the same way,” Kongming continued, steadying his voice with the pinpricks of pain from his nails digging between the thin bones, as hollow as rotting wood, of his wrists. He wished he had not listened to Lord Liu’s plea earlier this evening to leave his fan behind. “Perhaps you caught the loneliness in his eyes, General, for he was back in his hometown, and he was reminded of all that he had once felt.”

That was not the truth, Kongming knew. He had seen it in General Guan’s eyes himself: the guilt within the depths that was like a rough rock beating upon the shining silver blade of his soul. He took a deep breath. “I would suggest you wait, however,” he said, trying to smile. “You know the pride of a warrior better than I do, and how worries are held close to the heart for fear of losing dignity.”

“I do,” General Zhao said. He closed his eyes for a brief second before opening them. He turned his head up to the skies. “Still, I…” His lips curved upwards. “May I tell you one thing more, Mister Zhuge, for the selfish reason of unburdening my heart?”

Kongming wanted, at the moment, to reach out, to brush his thumb over those lips to tease out the shadows and brighten the smile. He kept his hands in his sleeves. He took a breath. “Of course,” he said.

“When I told General Zhang that my devotion to our lord fills my heart, it was not the whole of the matter.” He turned, and gave Kongming a wry smile matched with the flickering shadows in his eyes. “The truth is, Mister Zhuge… the bitterness of loneliness was easier to swallow when there was no one by my side.” Every word seemed to be a blade scoring down Kongming’s body, peeling apart his skin to allow his heart’s blood to spill, leaving him empty. “I cannot bear it,” General Zhao continued, “if I reach out to touch another, and yet find, when I look into their eyes, only confusion instead of the understanding I so desperately need.”

Kongming stared. “I…” he started, and could not continue. Despite General Zhao’s prior praise for his wisdom and his wit, now he could think of nothing to say. 

“Do you understand, Mister Zhuge?” General Zhao asked, his voice tightening with an emotion Kongming dared not identify. “The desire to not only to shelter, but to be sheltered when the storms of the world rage too fiercely? The need to not only provide, but also to be provided for when the emptiness within grew too heavy for me to drag my feet forward?”

Kongming knew. He knew it far too well. He was reminded of it whenever he looked at the General’s large, generous hands, rough-knuckled and heavy-callused by constant practice with his spear. He could not help but recall the edges of that aching hollow within whenever he caught a glimpse of the General after battle, torn and bloodied and yet still unyielding, and wanted nothing more to reach out to him.

But what words had he to shape these desires? He, scholar; he, strategist: throughout his childhood he had been praised for his mastery with speech, tongue shaping each character’s stroke with skill and ease. Yet now his mouth was empty and there were only shallow breaths to fill his lungs.

General Zhao placed his hands on his knees and stood up. Kongming followed. His legs felt as weak as a newborn foal’s, but he managed to not stumble like a fool. “Thank you,” he blurted out. “For your trust.”

Nodding, General Zhao’s smile softened at the corners. The sight of it pricked at Kongming’s skin, and he was suddenly aware of the chill of the night that had settled above it, now that General Zhao’s body was no longer inches away from his. Strangely, the cold turned into flames inside his blood, licking at his nerves. The fire threatened to settle between his hips. He swallowed and planted his feet deeper into the frost-hardened soil. He swallowed.

“I should thank you instead,” General Zhao said. “Goodnight, Mister Zhuge.” 

“The same to you,” Kongming replied. He watched as General Zhao turned his head. He watched as he started to walk away. Those footsteps, he noted, were heavier now, nearly dragging with every other step. He closed his eyes and pushed back the burning that had started behind them. There was naught he could do, he told himself. He had made his choices long ago, and he would not – would _not_ – allow his hands to wrap around those wordless desires. They would not hold; there were too many threads between his fingers.

He turned. He started to walk. For once, fortune favoured him: he saw no one during the short trek to the quarters he had been given.

When he entered the room, Yueying was sitting behind her side of their temporarily-shared desk. Her sleeve was stained with ink; she had been practicing her calligraphy. He continued to stand at the door, eyes staring straight ahead and his heart thundering in his own ears. Weight, so much weight; his body had turned to lead, yet there was still so much steel in his knees.

A hand on the back of his neck. Kongming’s head fell forward. Yueying’s forehead touched his own. The warmth of her breath ghosted over his cheek, but it could not chase away the chill. “Kongming,” she whispered. Her thumb stroked circles over his skin.

“Have you ever regretted the choice you made in marrying me?” he asked. In front of her, his voice trembled. He was more fortunate than General Zhao in this way, he knew, yet the consolation only forced wider the echoing hollow in his chest.

Her lips brushed against his temple, the kiss of a sister to her brother in the times of his pain. “Not yet,” she said. There was a tremor in her voice, a beat that matched that of his rushing blood. “Though Lady Mi asked why we haven’t yet had children, today.” 

General Zhao’s words echoed in his mind. _The desire to not only to shelter, but to be sheltered when the storms of the world rage too fiercely? The need to not only provide, but also to be provided for when the emptiness within grew too heavy for me to drag my feet forward?_ Kongming looked at his wife, his hand cupping her cheek. There was no confusion on her skin, only a sorrow that echoed his own. Only an understanding that they were both fortunate, both blessed, for they had found the best path to take. Yet their hearts were still greedy, for it wasn’t enough. 

They stayed like that for nearly an hour. The chill beneath Kongming’s skin refused to leave. He did not think it ever would.

Three nights later, Cao Cao attacked. Frost settled deep into Kongming’s nerves as he heard the villagers’ terrified screams and realised that he found joy in them. It seemed that there was a word to capture the shape of the devouring hollow within, after all: it was _selfishness._

Once more, war knocked on their doors, and now the battle had taken General Guan with it, stealing him away along with Lord Liu’s wives and newly-chosen concubine. As they ran to seek shelter, as he desperately tried to seek news of those who had been taken… There was no room in his mind for the ache of the need within. There was too much filling his eyes to note the answering loneliness in General Zhao’s eyes.

This was not cowardice, he told himself. This was necessity.

***

_The four hundred and sixth year of the Han Dynasty, late autumn  
A village at the outskirts of Xie County, Hedong, the future Kingdom of Wei_

The shrieks of crickets chirping rang in the air. Kongming stirred in his sleep, murmuring incomprehensibly under his breath as he threw an arm over his eyes. Yueying paused in the midst of braiding her hair, looking over to her husband. She had risen nearly an hour ago herself at her usual time, without need for the light piercing through curtains to nudge her into wakefulness.

Finishing up her braid, she twined it up to the back of her head, keeping the strands in place with a copper hairpin. Then she stood, heading over to the bed. As far as she could recall, Kongming had nothing in his schedule today except for meetings with the generals and their lord, all of whom would be sleeping for another hour or so after their drinking session last night and the late dawn of autumn. Yueying reached out, loosening the cords that kept the thin curtains above the bed tucked away, and pulled them close. She headed to the windows to make sure that no light could get through until at least an hour later before she headed out of doors.

Cold wind bit at her cheeks the moment she stepped out of the small hut that she and Kongming had been given for their lodgings. Winter would be approaching faster this year, and it would be a harsh one, testing the mettle of the villagers as they fought to survive. Yueying pulled her cotton scarf tighter around her neck and headed towards the village head’s main house.

Sounds of whirling steel and stamping feet interrupted her. Yueying didn’t falter – it could only be General Guan practicing with his glaive as he always did before dawn, no matter how late it was when he retired. She only turned her head, raising his voice as she greeted, “Good morn, General.”

“Lady Huang,” he returned. The sharp end of his glaive slammed into the soil as he let go of it, slapping his fist against his palm. “What need have you to be awake so early this morning?”

There was a deep furrow between the General’s brows, contrasting sharply with the high flush of exertion on his cheeks. Yueying took in the sight and shut it away to the back of her mind as she replied, “Lady Gan had offered for us to take over the running of the household from the village head’s wife, in return for the hospitality that they give so freely to our lord and his generals.” When General Guan’s head jerked up, lips parted in clear protest, Yueying shook her head.

“Let us wives do what it is we can for the war,” she said, voice quiet. “Let us give the little our hands can offer to alleviate the suffering of the people, even if it is merely to ensure that one old Alpha and her omega wife have a couple more hours of sleep for a few days.” 

What else could they do, after all, in this age of chaos when their weak fingers could not close around any weapons?

General Guan’s frown deepened for a moment before he sighed, rubbing his knuckles over his nose and mouth. Not for the first time, Yueying noted that he had small, pink lips that were plusher than most omegas could claim. She boxed up that thought, too. It led down a path that was fraught with danger; a path that she had long known that she, with her silk-covered feet, could never venture. General Guan was the greatest warrior of the Liu army, so named by the lord himself, so what mattered his beauty? What mattered his silk-smooth cheeks, untouched by any hint of stubble?

The slap of skin on skin woke Yueying from her reverie. “This nobody thanks you for your efforts,” the General was saying, head lowered beneath his saluting hands. “He humbly requests that the lady convey my thanks to his brothers’ wives as well.”

“You flatter us lowly ones far too greatly, General,” Yueying replied, putting both hands on one hip as she bent her knees almost to the ground. “Yueying thanks you for these kind words, and promises to deliver them to the Ladies Gan, Mi, and Li.” She stayed where she was, waiting. Eventually, he sighed, low and deep, before Yueying saw the glaive being lifted. The General turned away.

She kept her head lowered and knees bent until he was out of her sight. Then she straightened before continuing her trek to the main house. At least, Yueying thought, he recognised that she would have to repay any courtesies he offered tenfold, no matter how much he tried to lower himself in his speech; he was, after all, a General, while she was merely a strategist’s wife. 

When she was arrived, the kitchen was empty except for the dirty plates and cups and bowls that was left from last night’s revelry. Yueying expected no less, so she rolled up her sleeves before heading for the fireplace. She had a few sparks caught within the dried wood when she heard footsteps. It was likely Lady Li – the younger woman still hadn’t gotten used to there being a wife who was lower than her in status, and thus had a tendency to arrive earlier than most – but the heavy _thump_ was strange.

Yueying turned. Her breath caught in her throat.

Standing there, bent over the large bucket of water, was the girl she had seen in the village yesterday. She opened her mouth, but before she could speak, the girl sank to her knees without meeting her eyes, and placed her hands on the dirty kitchen floor as she lowered her head.

“This slave’s name is Qilan, the daughter of a maker of ceramics.” She had a sweet voice made distorted by how quiet and muffled it was by the wooden boards. “This slave’s father has instructed her to aid the village head’s wife in the chores required to ensure that Lord Liu and his generals receive proper hospitality from our village.” Yueying took one step forward, and the girl’s head met the floor. “This slave apologises for her intrusion, but no one was here when she arrived, so she thought to wash the dishes first. This slave knows she should have waited, but—”

“It’s fine,” Yueying tried to say, and winced at how loud her voice was. “Please, raise your head. I am no wife of a lord, you have no need to lower yourself so, especially when you have done me a great boon by fetching the water.”

“The Lady is very kind,” Qilan murmured. She drew her body backwards until she was kneeling with her hands folded on her lap. “This slave is unworthy of such courtesy, for she is only doing what she thought should be done.”

Yueying opened her mouth. After a moment, she reconsidered her words, and said, “Lord Liu and his generals will not arrive until much later in the morning.” She had noticed that Lord Liu was very taken with this girl, and it seemed that Qilan’s father had as well. What other reason, after all, would she be sent here this early in the morning? “I bid you to wash your hands and your face first, in this water you brought, and return here later in the day.” 

Beautifully-shaped eyes turned up towards her, going wide for a moment before Qilan once more lowered her head. “Lady,” Qilan said. “My father instructed me to help with the chores.”

“You have brought the water, the most difficult part of the daily work of weak-wristed wives,” Yueying pointed out. Then, when Qilan didn’t reply, she took a gamble: she strode forward and sank to one knee, reaching out to take Qilan’s dust-covered hands into her own. She felt more than heard the girl’s gasp, and tightened her grip. “You can tell your father with a clear conscience that you have obeyed them. You can tell your father, too, that Huang Yueying, wife of Lord Liu’s strategist Zhuge Liang, has ordered for you to go home and return in three hours, when the sun is high up in the sky.” 

“If that is truly what Lady Huang,” Yueying stifled an untimely shudder at the sound of her name from that voice, “orders, then Qilan will obey.”

“It is,” Yueying said softly. “It will be the orders of the Lord Liu’s wives as well.” A daughter should obey her father, she knew, but the instructions given by those higher than her in status should supersede those given by a low-ranking parent.

Slowly, Qilan nodded. She stood before walking with tiny steps towards the bucket. Her every movement was tentative, screaming with nervousness, as she washed her face and hands. When Yueying offered her a cloth to wipe herself dry, Qilan bowed so low that her forehead nearly touched her knees before taking it.

Then she turned and left. Yueying vaguely hoped that Qilan’s father would realise it was not their daughter’s fault that she had not managed to capture Lord Liu’s attention this morning. She doubted it. She wished she could have allowed the girl to stay, but if Lady Gan saw her here… Yueying did not want to think of what would happened. The older woman had taken it badly enough that Lord Liu had taken Lady Mi as his second wife already.

Water had been poured into the giant kettle and set to boil, and Yueying was up to her elbows in suds scrubbing at the plates and dishes – the village head mentioned servants when speaking to Lord Liu, but one glance at the conditions of the house had Yueying recognising that it was a lie – when she heard another set of footsteps.

“Yueying,” a quiet voice called. “You started without me.”

“Lady Li,” Yueying greeted, turning her head back. “There are chores that are now due for me to do, and not you.” 

The young woman – still a girl, really, younger-looking than even Qilan – laughed, the sound sweet and clear like a bell. “Here I was, hoping to arrive before you so that I can ask for you to deliver these to General Guan before starting on the chores.” Shaking her head, she set down a pile of clothes onto a chair after wiping it with the rag Qilan had used rea. “You have greater talent in finding him than I do.”

Before Yueying could reply, Lady Li placed her hands on her hips. “And how many times must I tell you to call me Juan, or even Xiaojuan, like Lady Gan does? You’re older than me, Yueying; it’s strange for you to address me ‘Lady.’”

“But you are General Zhang’s wife, and General Zhang is the brother of our lord,” Yueying pointed out. “It will be improper for me to use your name.” She paused, and added deliberately, “ _Lady_.”

In the middle of reaching out for the washed plates to dry them, Lady Li looked up and stuck out her lip. Despite herself, despite knowing the impropriety, Yueying laughed. “Perhaps if you are General Zhao’s wife instead, I might actually call you by your name,” she teased. 

Ducking her head, Lady Li giggled. “General Zhao _is_ very handsome,” she admitted. After a moment, she seemed to realise what she had said, and her head jerked upwards. “Please don’t tell my husband I said that!”

“Of course not,” Yueying said. “It’ll be a secret between the two of us.” She paused for a moment before she shifted her elbow and ruffled Lady Li’s hair with it. The younger woman yelped, ducking her head down to try to avoid it, and Yueying’s smile grew. If she was not an only child, if she ever had a younger sister, or even a younger omega sibling, she would want them to be like sweet Lady Li.

A thought niggled at her. Yueying let silence lapse between them for a moment more before she said, “I’ve never asked, but… How old are you, Lady Li?”

Lady Li peered at her from beneath her lashes before she tilted her head up, huffing a breath from her nose. “A lady must not reveal her age,” she said loftily. At Yueying’s lifted eyebrow, she giggled again, shaking her head. “I have seen fifteen turns of the year,” she said, “so I am sixteen.” She paused. “Of those, I have spent four by my husband’s side.”

Despite herself, Yueying’s breath stopped in her throat. The numbers were easy enough to calculate: General Zhang had married her when she was merely _twelve_. Yueying knew that she had married very late herself, at eighteen years old, but most wives were taken when they were fifteen, at least, for that was when they came of age and were paraded around by their parents as eligible for marriage. Lady Li could have only come of age the new year before Kongming had joined Lord Liu’s army, and by then she had already been General Zhang’s wife for at least a year already.

And General Zhang was not the kind of man who would be patient enough to wait to exercise his rights.

Beside Yueying, Lady Li sighed. She dropped down from her squat to sit down on the kitchen floor, drawing up her legs and leaning her head on her knees. “I shouldn’t have told you,” she said, her voice deep and heavy. “You’re just going to think differently of me, now.”

“No, I—” Yueying started before she cut herself off, shaking her head. How could she explain that her opinion of her _had_ changed, but only that she now marvelled that Lady Li had managed to keep her spirits throughout all this time? How could she explain that it was her opinion of _General Zhang_ that had lowered? How could she put all that into words without implying that Lady Li was a child; a child that she could no longer be, and had stopped being at merely twelve years old? 

Lifting her hands from the suds, she wiped them clean. Then she placed one gently on top of Lady Li’s head. When the girl – she could only be a girl, she _was_ only a girl, no matter what the laws and traditions said – tilted her head towards the touch, Yueying closed her eyes so they would not reveal how much her heart was breaking.

“How did you meet the General?” she asked. She did not want to know, but she knew she must.

Lady Li didn’t answer for a long moment. Then she sighed again, and shrugged. “My favourite older brother liked to study mushrooms, for he wished to become a physician,” she said quietly. “One afternoon, when I was trying to find some for him in the forest near our family’s estate, my husband came along. He asked my name, and when he realised who my family was, he took me away.”

“Your family?”

Nodding, Lady Li gave her a tiny smile. “My father is Li Qian, a powerful officer is Juye. One of my cousins is named Li Dian; he is one of the officers serving directly under Imperial Chancellor Cao.” Yueying blinked; General Zhang forcibly stole a girl and married her, when she was related to one of those who fought against him and his sworn brothers? When Lady Li saw her expression, she laughed.

“My husband took me _because_ I was a Li,” she said. “The Alphas and male betas of my family have a reputation of being clever scholars, and he said that, from me, he will gain clever children.” When she laughed again, the sound was dark and heavy; terribly unfitting to her young face, terribly fitting to the horrors she had been through. “Though I don’t think I am particular clever, myself.”

Yueying closed her eyes. To be suspected of intelligence due to her father’s reputation, to have been married for that cleverness… She stifled the shudder, but the chill that ran down her spine seeped into her bones, nonetheless. She shifted her hands to Lady Li’s shoulder, squeezing lightly. “You said that your father is a clever man. Why did he agree to such a thing?”

“What choice does he have?” Lady Li cocked her head to the side. “My husband took me in the forest, but he brought me home on a horse, with his hands on the reins. We walked through the entire village before we reached my family’s estate.” She ducked her head, her fingers toying at the hems of her dull-dark robes. “Either my father could agree, or he could be saddled with a defiled and unmarriageable daughter who will forever be a burden upon her family.”

 _You are not a burden_ , Yueying wanted to say, but she knew that would be a lie. What use was a child destined to be a wife, if not to _be_ a wife? What purpose can any one of them serve, if they were not wedded somehow? Even if there were those who were unmarried all of their lives, they were seen as even less, nothing more than laughingstocks. Or even worse, if they were seen as unwanted due to having been dishonoured. Though no child had resulted in General Zhang’s actions – it couldn’t have, for Lady Li was surely too young, and might even be too young even now – his very act of parading her around her village as his property had done so much damage to her reputation that it could never be recovered.

“It’s not so bad,” Lady Li said, placing her hand on top of Yueying’s and squeezing it. Trying to comfort _her_ , Yueying realised, and tasted salt and sour rising to the back of her throat. “My husband might raise his voice, but he had never hit me. By the grace of the gods, I have escaped that, for he prefers to hit those under his command instead.”

When Yueying made to speak, Lady Li shook her head, placing two fingers on Yueying’s lips. “Besides,” she continued, “having married my husband when young means that I have secured my place as his first wife. For an omega like me… There can be worse fates.” Her shoulders trembled before she straightened them, lifting her head up. “I could have become a concubine instead.”

“You,” Yueying started. She took both of Lady Li’s hands into her own, raising up to press the knuckles against her forehead. There was so much she wished to say that she could not find the words for; so much that she wished to rail against that she, with weak hands, could not hold the weapons to challenge. “You are strong,” she whispered finally. “You are kind.”

“Perhaps,” Lady Li sighed. There was an age to her eyes, now, a sorrow so unfitting to her still-rounded cheeks. “But, Yueying, I simply make the best out of what I have been given. Just like everyone else.”

 _What else, after all, can be done_? They were not Alphas like Lord Liu or Cao Cao; not those who could take a step out of their homes with a desire to change the world. They had no such power; they were merely wives. All they could change, all their hands could grasp, were themselves.

Yueying nodded. She did not speak. They stayed like that until the sounds of footsteps rang in their ears.

“It seems that breakfast has not been started,” Lady Gan said, voice crisp and sharp in the morning air. 

Behind her, Lady Mi, Lord Liu’s new second wife, scanned the kitchen with her eyes. She jerked her head to the pile of clothes left on the chair. “What is that?”

“General Guan’s clothes,” Lady Li replied. She had drawn her hands back, and placed them on her lap as she looked up to the wives of her husband’s lord and older brother. “I have finished repairing them, and I was hoping to return them to him when he arrives for breakfast.”

“Well, there will be no breakfast if the two of you keep dithering,” Lady Gan snorted. She tapped her feet while Lady Mi scrambled to bring one of the chairs for her, conspicuously avoiding the one holding General Guan’s clothes. “There’s plenty to do, and not much time to waste.”

 _Things would go faster if you help, too, instead of sitting there as you usually do_. Yueying dipped her head down until her chin touched her chest. “Yes, Lady,” she murmured. Lady Gan was making the best of what she was given, too, and her position as the first wife of their lord had given her far more than the rest of them put together.

Rocking back to her heels, Yueying stood. She lifted the tub where she had been washing the dishes as well, putting it to the side. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Lady Li bringing out the rice to be washed and then boiled in the pot. It was white rice, likely the village’s tiny stores of the stuff, polished and kept in case important guests arrived. Yueying ducked her head down, sighing quietly in relief. Well, at least the village wasn’t quite _that_ badly off, if they could spare rice for such a purpose.

They were all deep in their duties – of which Lady Gan’s was to sit and supervise, it seems – General Guan popped his head in. There was water in his hair and some beading on his long lashes, but Yueying doubted anyone else noticed as all of them stopped in their work to bend their knees to him.

“Uh,” General Guan said, freezing while running a hand through his hair. His eyes darted around the kitchen. “Ah, my clothes!”

“Juan apologise for the delay, and hopes that er-ge will forgive her for the lapse,” Lady Li said, lowering her head even further. 

“There is nothing to forgive,” General Guan said. Before Lady Gan could reach for his clothes, he had already picked them up and was back at the doorway. “I should have been able to repair them by myself in the first place, and you have done me a great boon for doing it.” He flashed Lady Li a grin so full of sheepishness and sincerity that it made the thin lines at the sides of his eyes crinkle up. “Thank you, and forgive me for disturbing your chores.”

Lady Gan shook her head, and General Guan smiled again, the expression lighting up his eyes. At the door, he stopped, as if remembering something. “Ah, my brothers and General Zhao and me won’t be needing breakfast for another hour or so,” he said. “Da-ge is speaking to the village head right now, and he wants all of us to be present. It will take a while, at the very least.” 

All of the wives bent their knees and lowered their heads to him in acknowledgment. General Guan inclined his head in reply before he left. Lady Gan waited until his footsteps had faded before she said, contemplatively, “The wife he finally chooses will be very fortunate indeed.” 

Even though she knew she shouldn’t, Yueying couldn’t help but duck her head down, and laugh hard enough that her shoulders shook with it. For she had looked at General Guan, and she knew: Why would he choose to live like them, who had to bow to them and serve his every whim, when he could be the one to be served, when he could wield his blade and carve out a world of his own? Why would he not hide, not lie, when he had hands so strong that he had usurped the place of the strongest from those the precepts had assumed to be most worthy?

His cheeks might be silk-smooth, and he might have a beauty like new-polished jade, but he had hands that could lift his glaive. Yueying did not resent him those. Neither did she resent him his lies and deceit. 

Like all of them, he was merely making the best of what he had been given.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The ghosts would not starve during the Festival.”: a reference to [the Hungry Ghost Festival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Festival). I actually have no idea whatsoever if the festival existed during the times of the Three Kingdoms, but... Well, it does in this AU, because the Festival – and its accompanying belief that ghosts will revisit the world and need to be fed by their descendants every year – is a very strong reason for the need of legacy.
> 
> Xi Shi: 西施; one of the great beauties of China, particularly well-known for her willowy frame and her pale skin. Legend claims that she is so beautiful that fish would drown in water when looking at her because they are that dazzled by her beauty.
> 
> Ages are calculated according to [East Asian age reckoning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning). (In summary: add one year to Western age reckoning. So Lady Li says that she’s sixteen, now, but in modern years, she is only fifteen.)
> 
> Li Juan 李涓: In history, she’s known as “[Lady Xiahou](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Fei#Family_and_descendants).” All I have changed is her surname – primarily because this universe’s Xiahou Dun would’ve murdered Zhang Fei once he heard about her kidnapping, and therefore history would be even more unrecognisable than it already is here, so she’s now related to Li Dian. I have also changed and added a few details here and there, especially in the aftermath of the kidnapping, according to the traditions and laws of the time. Everything else is historically accurate. (Her name, Juan, was taken from the 2009 _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_ cartoon, because she, like almost every woman, never had her name recorded in history.)


	4. Part III: 人所同, “common to all humanity”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a day late, and I'm very sorry.

_The four hundred and sixth year of the Han Dynasty, mid-autumn  
Liyang, near the Yellow River, the future Kingdom of Wei_

General Guan returned at the end of summer, when green had started to leech from the trees and oranges and reds crept in to replace it, when most of the foals were already born but had not yet learned to run beside their mothers. He rode into the town on a single horse, its coat so covered with dust that it had turned entirely grey and its limping legs trampling on the yellowing grass. The girl who had caught Lord Liu’s eye in the village – Qilan was her name, Kongming vaguely remembered – was seated behind him, her arms wrapped around his neck and her face buried into his shoulder. 

Lord Liu had demanded a feast to be held to celebrate the safe return of his beloved brother and his much-delayed taking of the girl as his concubine. Though Yuan Shao had already tired of his half-welcome guest’s demands, he acceded to it – for the feat General Guan had surely accomplished, he claimed, in convincing a snake like Cao Cao to let him go. Kongming, tucked into the corner with the shadows, was the only one who saw General Guan’s face grow even paler than it already had been, at the announcement. Surely it was because he could not see past Yuan Shao’s false words – the celebration coincided with the festival held in honour of the summer harvest, after all – and was embarrassed at such grandeur being held for his sake.

Merely a month later, Kongming realised he had been wrong. 

It was a warm morning when the news came. Kongming had heard it at dawn, tucked into the stables to breathe in both the scent of new hay and the soldiers’ whispers. 

A man who had woken up in the middle of the night for the outhouse claimed: he saw General Guan had leave the camp, and the straightness of his back declared that he was never to return. Another man, one with the habit of sleepwalking in the night, said: General Guan had left behind the knife engraved with his sigil – the one that Lord Liu had granted him when they had first spilled blood beneath a peach tree – thus severing all bonds of brotherhood he had had with Lord Liu and General Zhang. The soldiers who had night duty at the gates bowed their heads together to murmur: General Guan had been heading eastward – towards Xu, towards Cao Cao’s stronghold; surely, he had no reason to do so but to swear his fealty to the traitorous Chancellor who had captured him.

The soldiers concluded in hushed, disbelieving murmurs: General Guan was a traitor. General Guan was no General at all, no beta; he was a mere omega, little better than the concubine he had brought back for Lord Liu to bed. One who undoubtedly owned some strange, dark magicks to be able to fool them all for so long. 

Now Kongming stood in the garden of the house that had been temporarily bequeathed to him, hands folded into his sleeves. No clouds besmirched the brilliant blue of the sky, and a cool northerly wind eased the blistering heat of the sun. He withdrew his hand from his sleeves, tracing the air in front of him, forming the shape of a jaw that was both familiar and strange: more angular than his own, but silk-smooth, completely unlike Kongming’s own neatly-trimmed beard. The strongest hint he had ever had, and which he had always ignored because he had thought it surely could not be.

But it was. It was, and now there was no way he could avert his eyes from the truth.

Behind him, the sliding door opened, paper rustling as wood thudded against wood. “Lord Liu will ask you to speak to the concubine, soon,” Kongming said, his voice barely above a whisper carried by the winds. “He would wish to know everything she had witnessed.”

“There is a story that was once told to my father in my presence,” Yueying said. Her footsteps were silent as she came down the wooden steps to stand beside him in the garden. “Lord Liu Biao, Governor of Jingzhou, told my father: when Cao Cao was first in Luoyang as a young officer, he tried to curry Yuan Shao’s favour by offering him a book on strategy that he said he had written himself. When Yuan Shao opened that book, he recognised it immediately as Sun Tzu’s _Art of War_ , and chastised Cao Cao for his attempt at deception.” 

The wind was picking up. Yueying closed her eyes, tipping her head backwards as if trying to breathe in the scent of autumn that hovered in the breeze. “When my father heard the story,” she continued, voice lower than before, “he asked for me to retrieve a book from his shelves. He showed that book to Lord Liu Biao. It was Sun Tzu’s _Art of War_.” Her eyes opened. Her lips were curved up into the barest hint of a smile. “At the margins of Sun Tzu’s words were notes comparing them to the strategems used in history, especially those used by Wei Qing of Western Han. The name of that hand was writ in tiny words at the very back of the book.”

Kongming let out a breath. “What did Lord Liu Biao say, when he saw it?” 

“He laughed,” Yueying recalled. “‘It seems that even a snake coiled around a throne can learn,’ he said. ‘Surely Cao Cao only had this copied and sent out after Lord Yuan Shao’s reprimand,’ he said.” She shrugged, and brushed a few strands of loose hair away from her eyes. “Perhaps that is true. But the book was so old that the paper was yellowed and torn.”

No book could age that quickly in the few years between Cao Cao’s having Yuan Shao’s favour and the war that he was now waging against him. Kongming ducked his head. The efforts he had made in tending to the soil were paying off, he noticed: despite winter edging at the corners, the leaves of the bushes and trees in the garden were still green. A rich colour that outshone any that he saw in Hedong; fuller in ways that could not be explained by either human effort or the change in seasons.

“If we must condemn those who see only what they wish,” he said, finally, “then we must condemn all in the realm. We must, too, condemn all of our ancestors since the beginning of time.”

Yueying chuckled. She stepped past him to the centre of the garden, sweeping her robes out of the way to kneel in front of the peach tree shoot that had been planted when Lord Liu had arrived in Liyang to ally himself with Lord Yuan Shao. Despite the summer months that had passed, the shoot was still thin and frail, its leaves tearing off the branches at the lightest of touch. 

It served as an appropriate symbol: that very alliance had been broken nearly three weeks ago, now.

“Lord Liu had already asked me to speak to Qilan,” Yueying said, picking up one of the fallen leaves to rub it between her fingertips. “But there is no need for me to tell him what she said. Not when we both know that Lord Liu will only listen to what he wishes to hear.”

“We are all bound by our duty,” Kongming said, his eyes fixed upon the shoot. The soldiers had been talking about it, too; if peaches were the symbol of the brotherhood between their Lord and those who first joined him in his cause, then this struggling sprout was surely an omen of doom. Never mind that peaches grew best in groves rather than gardens, and even Kongming’s efforts could only do so much when the soil and roots were discordant by their very natures.

“Even if it means that we must all do battle against a man whom we respect and admire?” Yueying asked, cocking her head at him. “That we must heap more cruelty upon the head of a young girl who is still bleeding from the barely-closed wounds in her heart?”  
_  
_ Barely months ago, Yueying had told him, _Not yet_. Kongming had thought he knew what she meant, then, but it seemed that he had allowed the smoke from the flames of his fervent, desperate belief to blind his eyes. Yueying had not said, _Not yet_ , to console him for how she, too, would one day feel the same for one her choices forbade her from taking. She had said, _Not yet_ , for she had already seen her and knew the precise width of the gulf she could not cross.

“What is it that the little concubine said?” Kongming asked. Perhaps it was cruel of him to use the title to describe the girl, but he knew all too well the dangers that laid ahead of a path of temptation. Around the aching hollow within him was writ, in a careful hand, the necessity of constant reminders. “What is it that you believe Lord Liu will not heed?”

Turning her head, Yueying rubbed a leaf between her fingers as she stared at the door past his shoulder. “General Guan left, for Lord Cao showed him a world that he never thought could exist,” she told him. “He stood in front of him with open palms and told him that he would craft that world into existence for his sake, if only he would stay by his side.”

Kongming’s breath tripped in his throat. “What world would that be?” he asked. To his shame, his voice could not raise above a whisper.

“A world in which he did not have to choose between his honour and his integrity,” Yueying said. She dropped the leaf. Green stained her fingertips. “A world where he could carve out a place without bleeding himself out to build a shield of lies to protect him from the eyes that would cage him in.”

The soldiers had said: _General Guan is a liar_. The soldiers had said: _We have been betrayed_. Kongming looked down at his own hands. There were choices he had made in the past, a path that he had chosen when he had looked at the two that had stretched out in front of him for those like him; and he had turned towards the one that could bring him the possibility of honouring his ancestors and bringing their names glory.

For those like General Guan, there was no such choice. Not without deceit. Yet the choice he had made…

“He has given up his honour already.” His voice, to his own surprise, remained steady. “The betrayal of one’s lord is the worst of all transgressions.” Terrible enough that one’s reputation would likely never recover. One could only listen to the whispers about Lü Bu to know that to be true: ‘fool’ was the kindest epithet given to him for his constant betrayals. 

“The world that Cao Cao supposedly shown him would never come into being.”

“Perhaps,” Yueying said. There were shadows at the edges of her lowered eyes that Kongming could not decipher. “Yet I cannot help but remember what Qilan told me.” She reached out. Kongming stared at her hand for a moment before he took it, feeling the chill of her fingers as she wrapped them around his wrist. Her touch left streaks of green on the stark white of his sleeves. 

“What did she say?” Kongming asked, though he knew he should not.

Yueying’s fingers skimmed along the sides of his face, tracing the edge of his jaw and brushing over the skin pulled tight by the bun he used to keep his hair out of his eyes. “There is a man in Cao Cao’s army who is like you, though he has no wife,” she said. Her voice seemed factual, but Kongming could still hear the wonder in it. “Instead, he has an Alpha who loves him the same way, Qilan presumes,” the barest into of wryness came to her lips, “you love me.”

 _No_. “I have never heard of Cao Cao having a beta as a strategist,” Kongming heard himself say. 

“He is not,” Yueying said. Her fingers cupped Kongming’s face, forcing him to not turn away from her as she leaned in until their foreheads touched. “He is a General, and Cao Cao’s second-in-command.” Her fingers traced the curve of his cheek. “His martial skill is so trusted that, once, Lord Cao gave him the task of facing Lü Bu alone.” 

Cao Cao, arrogant tyrant that he was said to be, would never choose a second-in-command who could not match him in his wit. Cao Cao, a name matched with far too many skills and talents to count, should not have chosen a beta instead of an Alpha for a second, for surely only an Alpha could be equal to him. Cao Cao, an Alpha for whom martial prowess was key, should not ever trust a mere beta to face up to one of the strongest and deadliest warriors of their time.

“Zhang Liao is his name,” Yueying finished.

There were two paths for a man born with a knot too small for an Alpha’s to take: to love, or to be loved. Those who chose to be loved were wives: for them was a life where their names were written in the records of their husband’s family, and they could never have an ancestral tablet in their own family’s hall for how they no longer belonged there.

Kongming, brilliant since his youth with his pride overspilling his too-slender form, thought his path was clear. Never mind that he chose the lesser path – that of books instead of swords – for, he had told himself, he knew all too well the power that words could bring.

He closed his eyes. When summer had first arrived, he thought that the chill that had settled into his bones that night in the village had merely been the bite of frost. But now he felt once more that ache in his bones, and he knew that he was foolish. Summer was, and could only be, a temporary reprieve.

“We have made our choices,” he said quietly. “There is naught to do now but fulfil the duties we have laid upon our shoulders with our own hands.” He looked into her eyes, one hand cupping her cheek. “What use is there in thinking of worlds that could not be?”

“To know their outlines, so we can build them in our dreams,” Yueying returned. Her eyes were bright with sorrow, as if the tears she would not allow to form had changed into shimmering stars instead, stars that shone brighter than even the moon for which she was named. “But, Kongming… We are not fulfilling our duties. Not to each other. Not to ourselves.”

Months ago, before General Guan’s capture, Yueying had told him, _Lady Mi asked why we haven’t had children_. They shared an understanding and a bed. On cold nights, they shared the heat of their bodies, curling up together to keep from shivering. Yet their hearts remained untouched, and the flames of desire caressed their nerves only when their eyes were turned to others. 

Perhaps they were little different from General Guan, after all. To hold onto all they had, they had to dress themselves in lies that weighed upon them so heavily that they threatened to crush their ribs, forcing them to breathe blood instead of air. Yet they were different, for General Guan had torn apart the blood-fed roots that tied him to Lord Liu’s feet. And though the bonds Kongming and Yueying shared with that same Alpha were crafted by weak water-words, they could not even think of straining them by walking a little too far.

It was not Liu Bei who held him close, Kongming knew. It was all that he represented, held so carefully and proudly in his soft-curled hands. It was honour. It was pride.

But neither could bring him any comfort. Instead, they tore the chasm inside him even wider. His hand splayed over his own ribs, feeling the heart that still beat steady and slow. “Such a betrayal is one easier to dismiss,” he said. “Kept in secret, whose eyes could see?”

“Even when it weighs heavier on the heart?” Yueying pointed out, her hand overlaying his.

“What matters this weight,” Kongming countered, forcing his tone into lightness, “in contrast to the winds of praise that will blow for the centuries?”

Yueying blinked. After a moment, she pulled away. Her fingers didn’t linger on his skin, and her eyes lidded, shadows falling over them. “What matters, indeed,” she repeated. “What matters the cold in the bones, when your ancestral tablet will be kept warm by incense kept burning by those who know your name?”

Though he knew her better than to take those words as agreement, Kongming nodded. He turned away from his wife, kneeling down so he could brush his fingers over the frail branches of the peach shoot. “A tree will grow for centuries, setting its roots down into soil along with the acknowledgment of one’s past existence,” he said. “But one must first ensure that the soil is suitable, for if it is too wet or thin, it would die far too quickly to serve as a legacy.”

Watching her out of the corner of his eyes, Kongming noted the moment when Yueying opened her mouth before closing it. She turned her head, and bent her knees to someone out of Kongming’s sight. “General Zhao,” she greeted.

“Forgive me,” the familiar voice said, sounding sweetly abashed. “I knocked on your door thrice, but when no one answered, my feet took me around the house before I could stop them. I did not mean to interrupt.”

Foolish and greedy it made him, yet Kongming could not help but drink in the sight of General Zhao. Standing beyond the fence that separated the garden on which the house stood, he was looking at Kongming through lowered lashes as he rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. There was the lightest of flushes across his cheeks that made his skin shine gold in the sunlight.

“You have not, General,” Yueying said. “Your arrival is serendipitous indeed, for you can keep my husband company while I return to my duties.”

“Ah,” General Zhao said. He chewed on his lip for a moment before he ducked his head down, looking from Kongming to Yueying from beneath his lashes. “If you are certain.”

Kongming knew his cue. He stood, extending his hand. Yueying squeezed her fingers around his own as she took it, and he pressed a kiss to her knuckles. They exchanged a glance; Yueying’s smile mirrored his own. These were merely gestures to gather strength: both to steel their years-long pretence, and to ease their breathing when faced with those they knew they could not have.

When Yueying had retreated back into the house, Kongming turned around. General Zhao had his hands lying stiffly by his sides and his head turned away. “Should I,” he started. Then he seemed to give up on speech, and waved instead vaguely towards the direction of the house’s main door. 

Helplessly, Kongming laughed. “What need is there for you to make such a grand go-around?” he asked, cocking his head to the side. “Surely such a small thing,” he flapped his sleeve in the direction of the fence, barely higher than the General’s waist, “is not a challenge for your much-vaunted abilities.”

It was meant as little more than a tease, a joke to thin the air around them and clear the forming crease between General Zhao’s brows. But when the General looked at the fence, clearly considering, before he dropped one hand on top of it, Kongming knew that he made a mistake. He hurriedly folded in his hands inside his sleeves, and gripped tightly onto his wrists.

Just in time: the spark of pain helped him to push the yearning hitch back down his throat as he watched General Zhao vault over the fence; as those thickly-corded muscles on his arm and shoulder tightened to hold his weight; as the wind whipped his black trousers back to show off the lines of his long legs as he swung them over. 

“Well,” the General said, tossing his head back and forth to get a few stray strands of hair out of his eyes. “This is indeed a faster way.”

Swallowing past his closing throat, Kongming shrugged. “You wished to speak with me, General?” he prompted, leading the other man towards the stone bench.

“Yes,” General Zhao said. The hint of lightness in his being vanished. His footsteps grew heavy as he followed Kongming, dropping down to sit with his elbows digging into his knees. “I take it that you have heard about what has happened,” he said.

“Of course,” Kongming nodded. “General Guan’s departure has left an uproar.”

Rubbing his face with his hand, General Zhao’s shoulders shook. “Our lord told me, he has given General Guan three days.” He swallowed. “Once three days have passed, I will be the one to lead the team to chase him down.” Something must have flashed across Kongming’s face, for General Zhao shook his head. “The Third General volunteered himself for the task, but our lord did not wish for him to harm his heart by having to hurt the brother he so idolised.”

 _But what of_ your _heart?_ Kongming wanted to ask. General Zhao had looked upon General Guan like he was kindred; had clung onto him as someone who could understand the loneliness he had shrouded himself in. Kongming swallowed, and laid his hands on his lap.

“Perhaps he chose you to do so, General,” he started carefully, “for he knows that you will be merciful to Lord Guan.”

“Once more you have proven yourself to be a reader of the minds of men, Mister Zhuge,” Geneal Zhao said. There was a hint of a smile on his face, one that creased the sides of his eyes. “That is precisely what our lord told me.” He paused, staring at his hands. “I should not tell you this, for our lord had sworn me to secrecy. But I know the bonds of loyalty that tie you to our lord, and I know, too, your honour. And I…”

Kongming risked a hand on General Zhao’s wrist, placing barely any weight on it. When dark eyes rose to meet his, he smiled. “Whatever you wish to tell me, none else will know,” he promised. “Not even Yueying.” 

It was not a lie; she knew nothing of his first conversation with General Zhao, after all. Though they knew the look of each other’s eyes when they gazed upon the one they desired, they knew better than to ask for details. To recall, to remember, was a curse neither would bring upon the other for the sake of mere curiosity.

A bitter laugh escaping his dried, chapped lips, General Zhao shook his head. “The world will know soon enough,” he said, rubbing at his nose with the wrist not held by Kongming’s fingers. “But the other reason why our lord would not send General Zhang is… he is afraid that he will lose control of his temper once he realises…” He dropped his head back. His next words came as a tired whisper, barely strong enough to thread into the air:

“You see, Mister Zhuge… General Guan is with child.”

 _What?_ Kongming breathed in sharp through his teeth, stifling the instinctive shout. He loosened, too, the sudden tight grip he had on General Zhao’s wrist. But he could not lessen the wideness of his eyes, or even the parting of his lips. 

Here was an easy answer to all questions, all doubts: What choice did an omega have after he had been dishonoured so? What choice was left to him after he had been captured, alone and defenceless, by an Alpha with as much power and authority as Cao Cao held in his grasping claws? What path was left for him to take except for betrayal, after he had been so viciously misled himself?

The explanation was simple enough to be swallowed by soldiers to ease their hearts. It was, Kongming already knew, the one that Lord Liu would give to them once the murmurs had slowed enough for his voice to be heard.

Yet it did not make sense. For it was no mere omega whose actions were being debated. This was _General Guan_ , the strongest of all in Lord Liu’s army. A man who, when faced with a hundred soldiers, would still risk throwing away his glaive to fight with his bare hands. This was a warrior whose name was so feared that soldiers would turn and run when they heard it; a warrior who, it was whispered, would one day be immortalised in legends and tales for his unwavering courage and his skill with a blade. 

Still, this was an _omega_ , and all knew the weakness that washed over them in times of heat. Still, this was General Guan. Still, still, _still_ …

Kongming prided himself in his mind; in that swiftness of it to put together pieces of the world to form a full picture that none else could ever see. His mind was not at fault: it had formed a picture, and yet it was not one that he could believe. 

_A world in which he did not have to choose between his honour and his integrity_ , the little concubine had reported, her words reframed by Yueying’s voice. _A world where he could carve out a place without bleeding himself out to build a shield of lies to protect him from the eyes that would cage him in._

 __“You do not understand, either.”

General Zhao’s voice knocked him out of his reverie. Kongming’s fingers twitched. For the first time since morning, he mourned their emptiness. He had left his fan inside, for he did not think that there would be a chance that he would need it this morning. Not while he was here, in his own home, where he should have no reason for nervousness, for the only eyes were those of one who knew him well.

But General Zhao was here, and Kongming had invited him in without giving himself a chance to hide.

“No,” he breathed out finally. “But I do not need to understand to know that you will try your best to fail your mission, General.” He turned his head, and gave the other man a wry smile in reply to his look of surprise. “You are an honourable man, and no matter what you think of General Guan’s deeds, you can never bring yourself to harm an innocent.”

“What innocence can a child of Cao Cao claim?” General Zhao asked. His sardonically-raised eyebrow belied his words, and Kongming gave a shaky chuckle for he knew his cue. “That is… that is not truly the reason I will fail, Mister Zhuge.” The General shook his head, looking at his hands, clenching and unclenching rapidly. “I have witnessed General Guan’s power with his blade. I have followed his lead into battlefields wholeheartedly. Yet now that I know…”

He turned to Kongming, dark eyes searching. “You understand, don’t you? I have not trained, I have not strengthened these wrists, to harm an omega who seeks shelter. Especially a _pregnant_ omega.” He shook his head. “To do so would reduce me to a mere beast, a mindless slave to my blade’s cries for blood. To even attempt to do so is to throw away all of the honour I have earned through my life.”

Kongming’s breath stopped in his throat. His head spun. In his lap, his one free hand twitched, fingers scraping at the cotton of his robes uselessly. He stared at the face in front of him, the Alpha seated beside him. His warmth had not changed, but it could no longer protect him from the northern chill that seeped beneath his sleeves.

“But he is General Guan, still,” he reminded quietly. “During our battle but a week ago, he stood at the town’s gates and slew several platoons of Yuan Shao’s soldiers to force his retreat.” The General had volunteered and come up with the plan himself: it was the least he could do, he had said, for surely it was his killing of the Generals Yan Liang and Wen Chou while held in Cao Cao’s grasping claws that had caused Yuan Shao to suspect Lord Liu and turn against him.

It was by General Guan’s skill with a blade that they were still here, in this town, in this very province, instead of being forced into becoming rootless wanderers once more. Had General Zhao already forgotten?

The Alpha closed his eyes. “We should not have done that,” he said. “All of these years, he has wielded his blade for Lord Liu’s sake; for our sakes. It is our failure that he had to do such a thing.” His hand was clenched above his knee, his knuckles slowly turning white. “It was our failing, our inability, that he had to suffer for so many years.” 

“Is he no longer General Guan to you?” Was that voice, strangled with a strange desperation he could not name, truly his own?

Sighing, General Zhao rubbed his knuckles over his nose. “I dare not dismiss his deeds or his skills, and I am certain that the legends of them will echo for centuries.” His hand was trembling. “But my heart aches, Mister Zhuge, thinking of the strain that he had placed upon himself by taking a role that suits him so ill. Every single battle was surely akin to a chisel’s blow upon the glass of his heart. That is our fault. That is our inability.” 

If General Zhao, who had looked upon General Guan with the fervent hopes of one who wished for understanding… If General Zhao, whose reverence for their lord’s second brother was only dwarfed by that which he held for their lord himself… If _he_ , of all people, would now let fall all that once he knew about General Guan… If he thought of him now and saw nothing but an omega, with all his history and deeds erased…  
_  
Ah_. There was a certain pain, Kongming knew now, in the shattering of half-formed hopes. __

 __He clenched his hands. The wind was stronger now, causing the branches to shake and the leaves to shiver. The peach shoot was shuddering the hardest of all, its few struggling leaves beginning to fall. An omen, the soldiers had said. Kongming knew the soil and its consistency, knew that the roots were unsuited to it. Yet the knowledge sat so much less at ease within him than superstition, at the moment.

Tearing his eyes away from the tree, he turned back to General Zhao. He smiled. “Then I am glad, General Zhao, that our lord has chosen you to lead.” His voice echoed in his own ears. “You honour me with your trust.” A repetition, yet the words refused to sound rote, ringing with too much sincerity even in his own ears.

General Zhao opened his mouth. But before he could speak, Kongming continued, tongue nearly tripping over itself as he said, “There is something I wish to give you, before you leave. Will you wait here for a moment?”

“I…” The General blinked. Still sitting there, leaning back slightly, he looked absolutely poleaxed at the sudden change in topic. His eyes, so large and so wide, were bright with confusion. “Of course, Mister Zhuge.”

For the first time, the title was not mere formality, but a knife that sank between Kongming’s ribs. Breath escaped him in a sudden gust as his lungs filled and filled with something he could not identify, much less name. Without meeting those eyes again, he stood up and bowed to the General hurriedly before he left the garden, heading back into the house. 

The pouch was simple enough to find: he had left it lying at the corner of his desk last night. Picking it up, Kongming ran his fingers over the carefully-embroidered name: 趙子龍. The dark red threads felt rough on the too-smooth black silk, like scars, like an intrusion made into form. He shook his head, tucking the pouch into his sleeve.

He knew now the attempt would be worthless, yet his heart was still disobediently hoping.

The words came again: _A world where he could carve out a place without bleeding himself out to build a shield of lies to protect him from the eyes that would cage him in._ Kongming reached for the fan he kept on the desk, and tightened his grip on it until the woven straw cut into his palm. He forced his hand open. Red marks, near the shade of the silk threads of General Zhao’s name, had been scored upon his palm. He folded his hand around the fan again, hiding and worsening the marks, before he headed back out to the gardens. 

General Zhao had stood from the bench while Kongming was gone. The soft winds caressed the loose, dark strands that curled around his cheeks and jaws. An Alpha was rarely named beautiful, Kongming knew, but if Shu won a place in history, then surely there would be at least a line describing General Zhao’s exquisite loveliness that would be read by those who would come centuries later.

“Two weeks ago, a merchant visited the town,” Kongming said. He laid the fan over his chest, tugging his lips up into a smile when the General turned to him. “He specialises in dried teas and medicines, and he has travelled far and wide. You were busy training the troops, then, and so could not find the time for a visit. However…” He drew out the pouch, proffering it with his wrist turned up to the sky. 

“When I saw this, I thought it would be a pity if you did not have it,” he finished.

Taking the pouch, General Zhao stared down at it. When Kongming flapped the fan at him, he undid the knot that held the silk close. His eyes widened almost immediately, and he upended the pouch in into his hand. Tiny red fruits fell into his palm, their skins wrinkled and dry but their sweet fragrance still strong enough to fill the air.

“Golden thread dates,” General Zhao whispered. “From Changshan.”

“The merchant had nothing that came from Zhending itself,” Kongming said apologetically. He hid one hand in his sleeve even as he fanned himself with the other. “But the distance between Zhending and Cangzhou,” where the merchant claimed the dates had originated from, “is surely small enough that it might serve as a reminder of home.” When the General raised his eyes to look at him, Kongming ducked his head down, smiling behind his fan. “Loneliness might haunt your footsteps, General, but you still have a home that awaits you.”

“It has been decades since I thought of Zhending as home,” General Zhao said, wryness creeping into his tone. “But I see your meaning, Mister Zhuge.” He raised his hand, taking a long breath of the dates’ sweetness. “There is a home, here, with my comrades.” He lifted his head. The creases his wide smile made at the corners of his eyes brightened their depths until it seemed that the General’s joy had captured the stars.

“Thank you,” he said. “For remembering.”

Kongming closed his eyes. _A world where he could carve out a place without bleeding himself out to build a shield of lies to protect him from the eyes that would cage him in._ Would that world be one where General Zhao could smile like this every single day? Would that world be one where Kongming could reach out and feel the softness of the lips that were now curved so wide and free?

No use thinking of it: he knew all too well that, even if that world existed, neither of them would ever take the first step towards it. They could not.

“Please give my thanks to Lady Huang as well,” the General said. He gently poured the dates back into the pouch, smoothing out the silk with careful fingers before he re-tied the knot. “This is masterful embroidery, and it is surely more than what I deserve.”

“I will,” Kongming said, and did not tell him that a pair of hands suited for books and fan could be taught to be skilled with a needle as well. He did not allow himself to think of General Guan; of Yueying’s laughing stories of how Lord Liu’s and General Zhang’s wives frequently had to mend the General’s clothes for him, for he could not even manage a single stitch without stabbing holes all over his fingertips.

He placed his fan over his chest instead, and bowed down low. “May your heart be at ease, General,” he murmured softly. “May your trip bring no storms to your mind or your body.”

Smiling fading, General Zhao nodded. “I will pay you another visit before I leave,” he said. There seemed to be more words weighing on his tongue, but he shook his head and turned away. With one hand on the fence, he vaulted over it again before turning to look at Kongming over his shoulder. “Thank you once again.”

Kongming kept his head bowed, and did not watch him leave. When the footsteps had faded, he unfolded his fingers from around his fan.

Red dripped onto the grass. The woven straw had cut into the skin.

Months later, more news came. This time, Kongming was not hidden within a stall in the stables, but seated with Lord Liu and the Generals Zhang and Zhao as the messengers rushed in, practically tripping over their own tongues to deliver the news.

Cao Cao had forced the Emperor to abdicate, and placed upon his own shoulders the mandate of heaven in a self-crafted dynasty. Rumours followed the news: Cao Cao did so not because of his ambitions, not because of his own desires, but because of how the Han Emperor had tried to claim an omega that Cao Cao had already taken for his own.

When Kongming heard, he knew. The thoughts haunted him, for they were a harbinger of the change that would come. He started to laugh and could not stop. When Lord Liu demanded for him the reason for his hysteria, he could not find the words. The understanding was too solid in his hands to be reshaped into words, too ephemeral to be exhaled and believed.

Cao Cao was on his way to create that world that General Guan never dared dream could exist. And Kongming wished…

He _wished_. 

***

_The four hundred and sixth year of the Han Dynasty, mid-autumn  
Liyang, near the Yellow River, the future Kingdom of Wei_

“Her heart has been heavy,” Lord Liu said. He scraped his nail over the rim of his porcelain cup, his eyes fixed upon Yueying. “The time she spent in the camp of that traitor Cao Cao has been hard on her, and my- Guan Yu’s departure has been even more difficult.” He paused, sipping at his tea. “These are wounds that my hands would only widen.”

From her place on her knees, Yueying nodded. She did not lift her head, instead staring at Lord Liu’s feet. Though she had not expected to be called into an audience with the Alpha, she was unsurprised that he would ask this of her. 

“You are closer to her than my other wives are,” Lord Liu continued. “I’d like to ask of you to reach out to her, so that she might unburden her troubles on you.”

“For my lord to have noticed the relations between such lowly ones, his kindness is unparalleled indeed,” Yueying murmured. When he waved a hand and looked away, she lowered her head even further. She was right, then: it was not him who had noticed that, but General Guan, and he would not admit it now that the General had turned his back on him for the sake of his greatest enemy.

“Do you agree?” Lord Liu asked again, a trace of impatience coming into his voice.

“It will be Yueying’s honour.” Placing her hands on the ground, she touched her forehead against the floor. “Would Lord Liu desire to know the outcome of the conversation?”

“Only what you feel is necessary for me to know,” Lord Liu said. As he took another slow sip of his tea, his eyes bore into Yueying’s above the rim of his cup. “Kongming has praised your intelligence many times, Lady Huang, so I expect you know what that would be.”

 _Anything that applies to General Guan’s departure_ , Yueying mentally answered. _Anything that would be useful when it comes to your continuous war against Cao Cao’s Wei_. And, given that, none of the troubles that plagued Qilan’s heart. They were, after all, unworthy of a lord’s attention.

“My lord husband has flattered this lowly Yueying too highly,” Yueying said aloud. “She thanks Lord Liu for his faith, and promises to do her best to not disappoint him.” She touched her forehead once more to the floor, making sure that the sound was loud enough to echo even though her head throbbed from the force of the impact. When he waved his hand again, she nodded and stood, keeping her eyes lowered as she left the room.

Ever since her return a month ago, Qilan had been housed in the wing of the borrowed estate that was closest to the main building that Lord Liu had claimed for himself and his brothers. (His _brother_ now, Yueying thought, and bit back a bitter laugh.) Though Lord Liu had declared that it was for Qilan’s safety, Yueying suspected it was for his own convenience – the wedding ceremony had taken place, after all, and what man would not partake in his new concubine as soon as possible?

Standing in front of Qilan’s doors, Yueying knocked. When the young woman – a woman now, though Yueying still looked at her and saw only a young girl, and one who had lost too much too quickly – opened the door, she took in the sight of those red-rimmed eyes and flushed cheeks before she lowered her head. “May I enter?”

“There is no need for Lady Huang to ask,” Qilan said, her voice low and quiet. She stepped to the side. “Qilan will not refuse.”

“I am here on Lord Liu’s behalf,” Yueying said, not moving a single inch. She tucked her hands behind her back so Qilan would not see them start to tremble. “If Qilan knows that, will she still allow me entrance?”

Head still lowered, Qilan closed her eyes. “Qilan dares not refuse,” she said. There was no emotion in her voice.

Yueying breathed out through her teeth. She nodded, and took the couple of steps that would take her inside. Qilan closed the door behind her, the click of wood meeting wood echoing in the room. It was a small room, Yueying noticed; barely large enough for a bed, a round table with two chairs, and a tiny desk tucked against the low square hole bored into the wall that served as a window. It was, Yueying noted, exactly suited for one who held the position of concubine instead of wife.

Qilan shuffled past her as she headed for the table. “This slave only has cold tea to offer Lady Huang,” she said. “If she desires for hot tea, then this slave will fetch the kettle from the kitchen to boil some water. It will take a while. This slave apologises. She was not expecting company.”

To sit alone in this small room, not leaving often enough to keep the tea in the pot hot… Yueying closed her eyes. _Wounds_ , Lord Liu had said. It seemed that he had, again, miscalculated matters greatly. 

She strode forward. Her hands enveloped both of Qilan’s, stilling them on top of the handle of the teapot. When Qilan finally lifted her eyes, Yueying tilted her head so she could catch that dark, sorrow-laden gaze. “Will you treat me as an older sister?” she asked without stifling the quiet, strangling desperation in her voice. Even if she could be nothing more to Qilan, she would… she desired to have that, at least. “I promise to not tell Lord Liu anything that you do not wish for me to.”

Shaking her head, Qilan gently withdrew her hands. She placed them on her hip and bent her knees to Yueying. “Lady Huang is very kind,” she said, still in that quiet, emotionless voice. “However, Qilan does not require such a boon. She has told Liu da-ge everything she could.” She paused. “Er-ge has also done the same.”

 _Er-ge_. Despite General Guan’s breaking of the bond of sworn brotherhood between himself, Lord Liu, and General Zhang, Qilan still referred to him as her second brother. Then again, Yueying thought wryly to herself, her mind insisted on thinking of that man as _General_ Guan, too, even though he had foresworn his position the moment he left the town.

Even though he had finally revealed that he had won that position through lies and deceit. 

“Then Yueying must beg a favour from Qilan,” she said, resting her hands in front of her now. “She is deaf and ignorant, and knows nothing. She only suspects that General Guan left because he, an omega, has found a better place for him among Lord Cao’s people than Lord Liu’s.” Qilan’s eyes, Yueying noted, had gone very wide. “That is only a suspicion, and it might be but a mere figment of Yueying’s poor imagination. She has no confirmation.”

“You know,” Qilan whispered. “You _knew_.”

Nodding, Yueying stared at her hands. “Yes,” she said, her voice soft. “Yueying has the poor habit of watching the signs, and had years to put the pieces together.”

Qilan’s knees buckled. She did not protest, or pull away, when Yueying took her elbow with one hand and led her to sit on the wooden stool. “You knew that er-ge is like me,” she mumbled. “You have always known.” Her hands pressed against her eyes for a moment before she let out a shaky breath. Her eyes were so bright when they lifted to meet Yueying’s.

“Why don’t you hate him? Why didn’t you expose him?”

That was… Yueying gripped the edge of the table with one hand, steadying herself before she allowed herself to sit down. “Why would I?” she returned. She wanted, suddenly, for tea so her hands had something to fiddle with. “He is just like me, Qilan. He is just like the both of us. If he has been given a pair of hands that could wield a weapon as well as he could and did wield his glaive, then why would he not lie so to claw himself a higher position in the world?”

Closing her eyes, she shook her head. “If I owned the same, I would act as he did exactly.” 

Qilan let out a laugh, high-pitched. She pressed her knuckles against her mouth, but her shoulders continued to shake violently. There was sharp-cutting look in her eyes, in the twist of her lips, and though Yueying wanted to be glad that Qilan had dispensed with formality enough to react so honestly to her, she could not. Though she knew she should, she could not.

“Er-ge _lied_ ,” Qilan managed to say finally, every syllable tremulous. She shook her head. “You believe that _er-ge lied_ for the sake of advancing his own position in the world.” She lifted her head up to stare at Yueying, and she made that sound again. “You said that you have watched him for years, and still you believe that he, of all people, would _lie_.”

“I…” Yueying started, but her voice died. She knew that Qilan was speaking the truth: she _had_ watched General Guan, after all. The same man who had admitted his fault in causing Lord Yuan Shao to break ties with Lord Liu, who had placed himself alone in front of a rampaging army for he would have no one else risk themselves for his actions, would not be…

“Do you believe everyone is a selfish, grasping coward, Lady Huang,” the title was delivered tonelessly, but Yueying flinched anyway, “just so you can excuse yourself for being the same?”

Yueying opened her mouth. “I’m not— I…” she shook her head, for the words would not come. “Qilan, I…”

“Lady Huang, er-ge left because,” Qilan’s shoulders shook, “because Lord Cao, the Alpha Liu da-ge calls traitor, showed him a world he had never thought could exist. Because, Lady Huang, Lord Cao stood in front of er-ge with open palms, and told him that he would force into being a world where er-ge didn’t have to choose between his honour and his integrity.” She let out a sob. “A world in which er-ge no longer had to tear himself apart, bleeding and bleeding, every time he had to lie _to himself_.”

There was a world of difference, Yueying knew, between a person deceiving others, and their lies to themselves. Yueying swallowed, but the taste of sour bile and salt lingered at the back of her throat

“I hate them,” Qilan continued. She buried her face in both hands, shoulders shaking hard with her sobs. “I hate them both. I hate er-ge and I hate Lord Cao. I hate them so much because now they have each other. Now er-ge has a choice and Lord Cao _always_ had choices and I… Never once, not _once_ , have I ever… have I ever…”

The first time they met, Qilan had been instructed by her father to go to the village head’s house, in hopes of meeting Lord Liu and gaining his favour. On that day, Yueying had heard how Lady Li had met General Zhang. Yet not once, _not once_ , had she ever put the pieces together.

“If… if everyone makes use of what they have been given, Lady Huang,” Qilan continued, her voice steady despite her hiccupping sobs, “then, tell me, what have I ever been given that I can use? What have I…?” 

First a village girl, the omega daughter of a poor maker of ceramics. Then a concubine of a warlord who already had two wives, both of whom she now had to serve.

Yueying’s knees hit the ground. She reached forward, closing her hands around Qilan’s wrists. There was nothing she could say, nothing that would not worsen Qilan’s wounds. If General Guan had a path to Lord Cao where he could have freedom, then Yueying had Kongming. Her husband would never force her to take drugs to induce her heat for the sake of children. He might never love her and would never truly understand her position, but he respected her. She had that much.

Lady Li had said: _Having married my husband when young means that I have secured my place as his first wife. For an omega like me… There can be worse fates._ She was right; the circumstances could always be worse. But then… Then…

“You are right,” she said, voice soft. “I _am_ a selfish, grasping coward. But I do not know what else to be, Qilan. I know not _how_ else to be. It is easier, better, to think of General Guan to have lied than to look at him and see his pain and know that it is caused by a cruel world that has dealt him an unfair hand. It is easier than to admit that I am helpless, and I will always be helpless.”

All that was within their weak-wristed hands to change was themselves. But how much could they, but how far could they, before their bodies and minds became twisted-deformed things, trying desperately to fit into all that they should and had to be? 

Qilan was staring at her, she realised. Her dark, tears-bright eyes were wide, and her lips were parted. “You…” she breathed out. “You’re listening to me.” She sounded so surprised that Yueying’s heart ached, and she had to bite her own lip so as to not sob herself. “You are _listening_ to me. Lady Huang…”  
_  
Why wouldn’t I?_ Yueying wanted to say. But she remembered Lord Liu. She remembered, too, that even General Guan had frequently forgotten that his politeness and humility towards those lower than him could only cause them trouble, for they would have to repay the same tenfold.

“Did General Guan listen?” she asked.

“He did,” Qilan smiled, small and tentative. “He is too honest a person, Lady Huang: once his eyes had been forced open, he could not help but see all that was in front of him.”

Yueying blinked. Qilan had couched it in polite terms, but she could hear the underlying implications: if General Guan had been lying to himself about his own secondary sex, then the only reason why he could no longer do so was if he fell into heat because of Lord Cao. General Guan was long past twenty, far long past the time most omegas had their first heat, and Yueying doubted that it had been by accident that General Guan had avoided it for so long.

For Lord Cao to have thrown those shields into disarray, for General Guan to fall into heat for him _in the middle of captivity_ … Lord Liu had to be wrong about him, for surely a man like General Guan would not be so drawn to a dishonourable traitor.

Then again, Yueying noted wryly, Lord Liu was wrong about many things.

Shaking the thought out of her head, she looked at Qilan again. Tentatively, hesitantly, she held her fingers in front of the younger girl’s face. When Qilan nodded, Yueying brushed her cheeks gently, wiping away those tears. She dug out her handkerchief with the other hand, a smile tugging on the corner of her lips when Qilan dispensed with formality to blow noisily into the cotton.

“Why didn’t you go with him?” she asked once the cloth was bunched up in the corner of the table.

Qilan laughed shakily. “He is heading through dangerous territory to reach a man everyone thinks to be his enemy,” she said, a wry smile pulling up the corner of her mouth. “He will be pursued by people sent by a man who used to be his brother. During this journey, he must also protect the child he is carrying.” Yueying blinked, and Qilan shrugged. 

True enough; if General Guan had gone into heat with Lord Cao, and now he was heading back to him, there was no other possible conclusion. Yueying wondered briefly if the General had told Lord Liu that, and decided immediately that he had, and still Lord Liu had not seen.

Letting out a sigh, Qilan leaned back on her seat. “Besides, he is heading to Lord Cao to be his _wife_.” She tilted his head to the side. “Everything that he hopes for would be ruined if I had gone with him.”

Despite herself, Yueying laughed. She settled herself more comfortably on her knees at Qilan’s feet, taking hold of those long fingers again. The calluses beneath were thick and rough with years of constant work, but the skin above was smooth. “Am I projecting my own selfish, grasping cowardice,” she asked, “if I believe that you didn’t go because you know that there was a chance that, one day, he might be able to properly save you if you didn’t?”

Qilan ducked her head down. Her shoulders shook as she laughed with a voice made low and hoarse by crying. “He was,” she said, peering up to Yueying from beneath the veil of the hair that had fallen across her face, “the first person who had ever listened to me.”

Everyone could only make use of what they had been given; what fate and pure luck had granted them. With General Guan, Qilan had gained a single card to play, and she was clever enough to not throw it onto the table immediately. Instead, she was playing the longer game, placing everything she possessed – little as it was – into a gamble that might take years, or even decades, before coming into fruition.

Most Generals could not manage to do the same in their battles, preferring instead instant glory and gratification. Yueying smiled.

“I make for a poor substitute,” she said. “But there is one person I can try speaking to, though I do not promise that I will succeed in making him listen.”

She knew Kongming far too well; knew that he had locked himself behind cages with bars wide enough to step through, but which he never would escape. Every time she saw him with General Zhao, that knowledge only solidified. 

But she would try; she had to try, for what else could she do? What else was left for those like them except for pray for fortune to deliver in their grasp someone who was powerful and who would listen to them; someone with wrists strong enough to twist into being the changes that were needed, and with enough selflessness to fight not for themselves, but for others? 

General Guan had found Lord Cao. But Lord Cao was of Wei, and hence might as well be an entire world away.

Qilan closed her eyes. When she fell forward, Yueying caught her with a hand on the nape of her neck. When Qilan leaned against the touch, when she didn’t pull away, Yueying let out a breath, and allowed their foreheads to touch.

“Thank you, Lady Huang,” Qilan whispered.

“Please,” Yueying whispered. “When there are only the two of us, will you call me by my name?” Not by the surname passed down to her by her father, and which belonged far more to him than it ever would to her, but by _her_ name. The only thing she could fully claim to be her own, father-given though it might be.

“Yueying,” Qilan whispered. Yueying choked back a sob, but felt the tears spill from her eyes down her cheeks anyway. “Yueying, thank you.”

There was nothing more Yueying wanted than to take her hand and to taste the salt of knuckles on her tongue. Nothing more than, perhaps, to tilt her head slightly and feel the softness of Qilan’s lips against her own. But she knew she could not.

If Qilan learned to love her now, it would only be out of a sense of obligation, out of the need to repay a debt. Yueying was selfish and grasping and cowardly, and she wanted no such thing.

So, this would do. This would have to do. Until the day when Yueying did not need to kneel for them to stand on equal ground.

Taking a deep breath, she focused on Qilan again. Squeezing the younger woman’s fingers, she waited until dark eyes met hers before she tried a smile, and was relieved when she could not feel it trembling. “What else,” she asked, “did you find interesting among Lord Cao’s camp?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yueying’s story about her father meeting Liu Biao and hearing that story is very much made up – there’s pretty much nothing about Liu Biao, much less his relationship with Huang Chengyang, and, honestly, I’m not even sure if they’re in the same place when Yueying was a kid. What she told, though, about Cao Cao trying to impress Yuan Shao with a book he plagiarised and claimed for his own? That’s adapted from _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_ : in particular, the part about the [New Book of Mengde](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictitious_stories_in_Romance_of_the_Three_Kingdoms#New_Book_of_Mengde). 
> 
> [Wei Qing of Western Han](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wei_Qing:): 衛青, one of the greatest strategists and tacticians in history, responsible for repelling Xiongnu invasions so effectively that they didn’t dare invade Han lands for four hundred years after the last campaign he made before he died. He is also known to be incredibly humble, forgiving, and was born an illegitimate bastard. When Emperor Wu (the same Emperor Wu referenced in Part 1) made him an officer of the army, he was merely a stablehand.
> 
> 趙子龍: “Zhao Zilong” in traditional Chinese characters, because the simplified version has only existed for the last fifty or so years, while the traditional version has remained largely unchanged for the last two millennia.


	5. Part IV: 不如物, “unequal to beasts”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** The first scene includes detailed description of an ancient Chinese warzone, including grave-robbing, dead civilians, dead babies, and discussion of suicide and murder that are considered valid ways to be ‘helpful’ in said warzone. The scene also includes the threat of violence from a very high-ranking person to someone who is far below them on the social ladder.

_The four hundred and twelfth year of the Han Dynasty, early spring  
Changban, Jingzhou, the future Kingdom of Shu Han_

Perhaps the Generals all knew Lord Liu’s plans, and they had already prepared themselves beforehand. Perhaps the soldiers all knew as well, down to the lowest infantryman, and they had trained in the formations that were required for the highest chance of success. Kongming, Yueying knew, had definitely predicted this even if he hadn’t been the instigator and mastermind of the plan.

But none of the wives had been told. Yueying had only started to suspect when she felt the ground trembling from what she recognised to be the force of thousands of horses in swift gallop, and when she saw that the villagers start to leave in droves. Even then, she had almost been too late: she had only had the time to force Ladies Gan and Mi, Qilan, and Lord Liu’s infant son into a carriage, heading for the village beside the castle. Lady Li had insisted on waiting for her husband, and Yueying, who had known from the start that Kongming would not come for her for his duties to their lord far superseded any concern for her he might remember to own, had decided to wait with her.

General Zhang had not arrived. Now, the castle was on fire, smoke billowing high enough to shroud the soldiers stationed at the top of the walls, and thick enough to cover the corpses that littered the ground. Yueying shoved her sleeves over her mouth, stifling a cough. Her instincts _screamed_ , and she threw herself forward, shoving Lady Li’s head down as stray arrows thudded around them.

“We need to get out of here,” Yueying said, eyes scanning their surroundings. With one hand still on Lady Li’s shoulders, she shielded her eyes with her other, squinting up to the skies. “I suspect that our lord and husbands have headed north of here, nearer to the hill.” Lord Liu owned few horses, so those hooves she had heard must belong to Lord Cao instead. Given that Lord Liu only had infantry, his best chance of defeating an enemy’s cavalry was to set his own soldiers in formation upon flatland with archers in rows on higher ground with their bows pointed towards the approaching cavalry.

Kongming, Yueying knew, would have told him exactly the same thing.

“Come, Lady Li,” Yueying said, flashing a small smile at the younger woman. “We have to go.”

“I’m sorry,” Lady Li said. She wiped at her cheeks with a trembling hand, smearing dirt upon the pale, smooth skin. “If I hadn’t stubbornly wanted to wait, you would have been gone from here long ago.”

“It was my own decision to wait with you,” Yueying said. She squeezed Lady Li’s shoulders before she bent down, swinging one arm over her own shoulders and wrapping her arm around the other woman’s waist. “It is my decision now, too, to aid in your escape. So, Lady Li, do not at any point mention that I should leave you behind.”

Lady Li laughed. “How terrible, Yueying,” she said, a trace of mirth coming into her voice. “You just prevented me from doing the one possibly useful thing.” 

“There will be plenty of ways for you to be useful once we get out of here,” Yueying replied, distracted now. There, in front of them, were the gates. Unfortunately, that meant they had to go closer to the wall; closer to the site where the enemy soldiers were aiming. Yueying ducked her own head down, feeling the metallic chill of a passing arrowhead. It would be nice, she thought vaguely, if the soldiers at the other side would spare some thought for those still within the castle, and thus take more care in their aim.

She looked around herself for a moment before she made a decision. Squeezing Lady Li’s shoulders, she stepped back. She pulled the knot of her cloak free and swung it outwards, covering Lady Li’s head. “Hold it up over your face, Lady,” Yueying said. “I will be back as soon as I can.”

It would provide her with very little protection, she knew, but that wasn’t what the cloak was for. If Lady Li couldn’t _see_ the arrows, then she wouldn’t panic. More to the point: if Lady Li couldn’t see her, then she wouldn’t be able to stop her.

When fingers took hold of the cloak, Yueying met Lady Li’s confused eyes with a reassuring smile. Then she darted off to the side, heading for the corpses. Those soldiers wore only leather armour – low-ranked infantrymen – and she ignored them. She wove around the falling arrows, gaze darting between the top of the wall, Lady Li, and the fallen soldiers around her—

 _There_! Two dead men, both of them with chainmail. Yueying ran over as quickly as she could, falling to her knees immediately into the dirt. Her fingers flew upon the leather straps as she stole the armour off one body then the other, muttering quiet apologies under her breath to the spirits of the dead. She hoped that they would understand that the steel on their bodies would be better served protecting the living.

With two sets of chainmail in her hand, Yueying sprinted back to Lady Li. The younger woman still had Yueying’s cloak held over her head, the drapes of cloth covering her face. “I’m here,” Yueying said. “I need you to keep your hands on my cloak, Lady.” Before Lady Li could reply, Yueying dropped one of the chainmail on top of the cloth before shifting Lady Li’s fingers so she was gripping it along with the cloak.

“What,” Lady Li tried to stay, but she fell silent when Yueying’s arms fell on top of her shoulders. She stood instead, and Yueying tightened her grip as she held the other set of stolen armour above her own head. Gritting her teeth, she crushed Lady Li against her side.

“We’re going,” she said, and that was the only warning she could give before she started to run. Lady Li was stumbling, feet unsteady, but she managed to keep up nonetheless as they sprinted out of the castle gates with arrows raining down on them, metal arrowheads clanging loud against the chainmail. Yueying sucked in a sharp breath when she felt one graze her wrist.

There was blood dripping onto her sleeve when they finally exited the castle. A few enemy soldiers noticed them, and Yueying lowered her chainmail shield as she stuck closer to the wall, bringing Lady Li closer to her as they ran around the castle, heading in the direction of the village that they would have to pass through to reach their husbands.

Somehow, the soldiers didn’t give chase. Likely because neither of them had been recognised and were thus judged too unimportant, Yueying thought wryly.

“A horse,” Lady Li said suddenly. “Over there, Yueying. A horse!” 

Yueying turned. Lady Li was right: there was a horse approaching in a panicked gallop, its reins flapping around its neck and its nostrils flaring. Yueying stared at it. Both Lady Li and she could ride, certainly, but they would have to catch the horse first, and that was surely impossible— 

“I learned to ride when I was very young,” Lady Li said. She dropped the chainmail and took one step forward, bending her knees as she stepped directly into the horse’s path. “Before my husband took me away, I used to play with the young, untrained colts. They would let me ride them even as they threw everyone else off.”

Staring at the younger woman, Yueying scrambled backwards. Just in time, it seemed: Lady Li took a running leap towards the horse. When she reached it, her hands grabbed the saddle and she threw herself up onto the animal’s back. As the horse reared, trying to throw her off, Lady Li made a noise at the base of her throat, almost like a snarl, and pulled hard enough on the reins to snap the horse’s head backwards. Its nostrils flared, and Lady Li’s thighs clenched around its stomach, digging her knees into its flesh.

Miraculously, the horse calmed. Its hooves hit the ground, sending up a cloud of dust, as its nostrils flared again as it shook its head hard. Lady Li leaned forward, her fingers carding through the horse’s tangled mane. Yueying realised that her mouth was open, and hurriedly closed it.

“You told me that there are other ways for me to be useful,” Lady Li said. When Yueying blinked up at her, she laughed. “If you can rob the corpses of soldiers for my sake, Yueying, then the least I can do is to remember the small skills I had as a child.”

Approaching the horse, Yueying shook her head. She took hold of the back of the saddle, and swung herself on. As the horse stamped in protest, Lady Li scraped her nails through its mane. It calmed immediately, huffing a heavy breath through its nostrils before it stayed still. Surely the weight of two wives in mere robes couldn’t be much more than that of an Alpha in full armour, Yueying thought. 

“These skills,” she had to point out, “are not small.”

Lady Li shrugged. She made to hand Yueying the reins, but Yueying shook her head, settling her hands atop of Lay Li’s small shoulders instead. The younger woman nodded, and she kicked lightly at the horse’s stomach, urging it to gallop towards the village.

“My father had his own army!” she shouted above the sounds of the roaring wind and thundering hooves. “I grew up among horses and horsemen, and they were kind enough to indulge a mere omega child in her curiosity.”

Chuckling, Yueying leaned forward, wrapping her arms around Lady Li’s shoulders. What a magnificent horseman she would have been if she had been born an Alpha. What glories she might have won for herself if she had never been kidnapped by General Zhang; if the world had been kinder, and not taken the secondary sex she had been born with as limits for what she was allowed to be.

The lines between the scorched fields and the village were thin, marked by the thick smoke that curled above the burning thatched roofs and the torn down wooden walls. Yueying could feel tremors starting in Lady Li’s body at the sight of civilians, mere villagers, lying dead on the ground. It made Yueying think of Qilan; made her think of that village in Hedong, Qilan’s hometown, and how it had been ravaged by Lord Cao’s forces the same way as this one had.

Qilan had said that Lord Cao promised to build General Guan a world where he would not have to choose between his honour and integrity. But it seemed that such a world could only be built upon a foundation of dead bodies. Yueying, who had not seen even a hint of possibility of that world’s existence, could not tell if it was worth the lives that had been paid.

Speaking of Qilan… “Do you see any hint of the other ladies?” Yueying asked.

“No,” Lady Li said. There was worry in her voice, too, and her hair tickled at Yueying’s neck as she scanned their surroundings. “Perhaps they have already—” She stopped. She had seen what Yueying had.

There, just a short distance from them, was the carriage that Yueying had put Lord Liu’s family in. The wood was smoking slightly, but the coiling grey couldn’t obscure Lady Gan’s body that lied, sprawled, a little distance away from the carriage. 

Yueying grabbed at the reins, urging the horse to stop. Then, before Lady Li could stop her, she swung down from the horse and sprinted over to the carriage. Smoke stung her eyes and flames licked at her skin, but Yueying ignored the pain as she shoved at the ruins of the carriage until the wood cracked and fell apart. 

It was empty; Lady Mi, Qilan, and the young lord were nowhere to be seen.

Bodies of soldiers littered the ground. Most of them faced the same direction. Yueying ran forward, nearly slipping on puddles of blood that turned the loose soil sticky, clinging to the soles of her shoes. Her hands were trembling by her sides, so she clenched them, digging her nails into her skin. Every corpse she saw was either dressed in leather or chainmail, or they had on the cotton rags of peasants. There were a few infants, dead as well, but none as small as the young lord.

A well. Yueying flung herself in its direction, holding onto its roof for balance as she narrowed her eyes, trying to discern shapes in darkness. Did Qilan try to throw herself down the well? Did anyone else try to push her down it? Was she lying at the bottom of this lonely well, her neck broken like Lady Gan’s? Was she lying there with her eyes open and her body exposed for rats to feed on like every other lost soul, doomed to forever roam this world hungry because there would be no one to bury them, no one who give them offerings after their death? She leaned forward even more, ducking her head down.

Arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her back. Yueying thrashed for a moment before she registered Lady Li’s voice in her ear, calling her name. “You’re going to fall in,” Lady Li said, sounding panicked and breathless. She had, Yueying realised distantly, likely ran after her. “Yueying, I saw Bailong.”

Bailong. General Zhao’s horse. Why would Yueying care a whit for General Zhao, when Qilan might be in danger?

“They were on Bailong, Yueying,” Lady Li continued. “I saw Lady Mi and Qilan on Bailong.”

 _Oh_. Yueying’s breath hitched. “They passed by me just now,” Lady Li said, her words tripping over each other as she spoke faster. “General Zhao was behind them, covering their retreat. They’re alright, Yueying. They’re alright.”

Yueying’s hands slipped from the roof as she sagged forward. She would have fallen in if not for Lady Li’s arms around her waist. There was a spike of pain juddering up her arm, but she barely felt it. Qilan was alive. She was _alive_.

“She seems unhurt, Yueying,” Lady Li said, her voice so soft. “Qilan is safe.”

Pain crawled up from her knees. Yueying stared at them, and realised belatedly that she had fallen down to the ground. She dragged her fingers through the dirt and dust, leaving beneath a trail of red. The ceramic tiles of the well’s roof had broken, she realised, and she had cut her skin open on them. Her sleeves were stained with fresh red, stark upon the darkening brown from the scabbing wound on her wrist.

“Have you ever,” Lady Li asked, hesitant and half-stuttering. She took a breath, loud in Yueying’s ear. “Have you ever loved your husband, Yueying?”

Despite herself, Yueying laughed, bitter and tremulous and dark. Of course, Lady Li knew now. Of course, she had given herself away. She was surprised that it had taken so long. So many had commented that she and Kongming had never had any children. Even Lady Li herself had once noted that Yueying had never gone into heat during the years she had known her.

“Kongming and me made the best of what we have been given,” Yueying told the bright blue sky above her. Her eyes pricked with tears that she refused to shed. 

“Oh,” Lady Li breathed. She pressed her face between Yueying’s shoulderblades. She did not say another word, and Yueying was thankful for it. She neither needed nor wanted pity or sympathy, for she knew she deserved neither. After all, she was lucky; Kongming did not begrudge that she loved another. She did the same for him, but a wife’s consent for a husband’s straying passions meant far less than the reverse.

Taking a deep breath, she straightened, pulling herself together with strength she held onto with grasping hands. “Come,” she said, turning her head to look at Lady Li. “We have to go.”

“Yes,” Lady Li said. She stood, and held her hand out for Yueying to take. “You must see Qilan for yourself, so your heart will be eased at the sight of her truly unharmed.”

Laughing again, Yueying took that hand, allowing herself to be pulled to her feet. Lady Li led her back to their waiting horse. This time, when she was offered the reins, she took them. As Lady Li kicked the horse into motion, Yueying led the horse in the direction of the flatland where she predicted the battle would take place.

It didn’t take very long before she was proven right: the sounds of neighing horses and shrieking soldiers soon reached their ears. Lady Li’s head ducked down, and Yueying leaned forward to allow the younger woman to tuck her face against the crook of her arm. A distance of them, she could see General Zhao’s spear, flashing silver in the light reflected by the polished copper of the infantry soldiers’ shields. Yueying tightened her arms around Lady Li’s waist, pulling hard on the reins so the horse followed the footsteps of General Zhao’s borrowed brown one.

For his Bailong, his faithful companion, was in front of him, and upon that horse’s back was Qilan. She was wrapped around both Lady Mi and little Liu Shan. From here, Yueying could see no blood upon her.

To their left, a loud roar exploded into the air. Lady Li’s head jerked up immediately as she turned, and Yueying lowered her arm so the younger woman could see General Zhang as he swung his spear, his blade cutting down the enemy soldiers who had frozen at the sound of his resounding voice. Lady Li laughed, bright and clear with pride at the sight of her husband’s ferocity.

Which reminded Yueying. Her eyes scanned the battlefield until she caught sight of a figure in white. Kongming was seated astride his usual horse, his eyes were fixed entirely on General Zhao. There was a wide, wild grin on his lips that Yueying had never seen outside of situations concerning that particular General. Even when she raised her hand, it took Kongming a few moments before he noticed her. He offered her a brief salute with his eyes still fixed on General Zhao.

“Oh,” Lady Li breathed. She had, it seemed, been watching. 

“Fate has been kind to my husband and me,” Yueying said, dark mirth creeping unbidden into her voice. “We, equally unsuited to our positions in life, have been allowed to meet.” When Lady Li squeezed her arm gently, Yueying shook her head. Despite her tone, she did mean her words: she had learned all too well in the past years that there were those who had far less.

They left the battlefield following General Zhao, heading for Lord Liu where he had been sequestered in the hill behind the flatland, ushering the escaping peasants along. As Yueying watched. Lady Mi managed to urge Bailong into a stop, and Qilan helped her down the horse. They stood there, waiting, until General Zhao arrived, at which point Lady Mi lowered her head and held little Liu Shan up for the Alpha to take. Even from a distance, Yueying could see the drying trail of tears on her cheeks.

General Zhao took the infant. Lord Liu had turned towards him by then, and he jerked forward as the General went down on one knee, holding Liu Shan above his head. “My lord,” General Zhao said, his voice ringing above the murmurs of the peasants’ voices and the now-distant shouts of soldiers. “Your son is safe.”

“Zilong,” Lord Liu said. “Please rise. Your efforts…”

Shaking his head, General Zhao tilted his head up until he was meeting Lord Liu’s gaze. “The young lord was not saved by my efforts alone, my lord,” he said. “Zilong found Lady Mi and Concubine Qilan near a well in the village. Concubine Qilan was fending off some soldiers with a stick. When your General approached, she grabbed Bailong’s reins. It was then that Zilong heard Lady Mi try to convince Concubine Qilan that the young lord must be handed over to him, and that their duty, as wife and concubine, was to throw themselves down the well so as to not become hindrances to the young lord’s rescue.” Yueying’s breath caught in her throat.

“However,” General Zhao continued, “Concubine Qilan threw Lady Mi up on Bailong, then, and put the young lord into her hands before mounting the horse herself. With all three of them safe, Zilong then could fight off the enemy with an easy mind to clear the path.”

Lord Liu looked at him for a moment before he smiled, shaking his head. As Yueying dismounted from the stolen horse, Lord Liu clasped General Zhao’s elbows with both hands, bodily hauling him to his feet.

“Your report spoke nothing of your own deeds,” he said, “and that showed your humility well.” He glanced at Liu Shan for the briefest of moments before turning his attention back to his General. “I am of great fortune, Zilong, to have a brother like you. For surely wives and concubines and children are naught but sleeves, easy to cut away, while brothers are arms, greatly missed when lost.”

Behind General Zhao, Qilan lowered her hand. Her hands curled into fists by her sides. Yueying stared at her own clenched fingers, and blinked at the sight of blood trailing down her knuckles from the reopened wound on her palm. She dragged in a breath, and let it out. She didn’t bother to wipe the blood away, letting it drip onto the dusty ground.

“My lord,” Lady Mi said, her voice small even as she stepped forward. “My older sister- Lady Gan,” she corrected herself, “she could not be saved. Her body was left back in the village. Will… will my lord be so kind as to send men back to retrieve her, so she might be given a proper burial?”

About to turn away, Lord Liu raised an eyebrow at her over his shoulder. “If you have not noticed, Lady, we are in the middle of a battle,” he said, voice dry. “There is no time for such trivialities.”

Lady Mi closed her eyes. “Of course, my lord,” she said, stepping backwards. When Qilan reached for her, she curled up into herself, and turned her head away. A single tear made its way down her cheek, lit by the bright sunlight of the morning.

At that moment, Kongming approached. “My lord,” he said, catching Lord Liu’s attention. “Cao Cao’s reinforcements have arrived. We must make our retreat now, or else we would lose even more soldiers.”

“But the peasants,” Lord Liu started, and then sighed, running a hand over his face. Yueying stared at him, lips thinning. It was difficult to believe that her lord would give so much care for mere commoners, she thought, when he had so easily dismissed the supposedly small lives of those who were supposed to be his family; when he hadn’t even acknowledged the presence of the wives of his brother and strategist.

“Give the order to retreat,” Lord Liu said. His hand clenched at his side, and he gritted his teeth. “Damned that traitor Cao Cao! If he hadn’t stolen Yunchang away from us, Yunchang would have taken on his entire cavalry. If Yunchang is still here…”

Yueying blinked. “My lord.” When Lord Liu turned towards her, she pointed towards a speck in the distance. Even this far away, even after years of separation, the glint of sunlight upon the long blade and polished wood of a glaive was still immediately recognisable. “General Guan _is_ here.”

Here, mounted on a horse beside a speck of darkness that was Lord Cao, dressed as he always was in the purest of black.

Lord Liu took three steps towards her. Yueying tilted her head up, bracing herself for a blow. 

But before Lord Liu could raise his hand, there was the sound of scrambling footsteps. Kongming’s white robes billowed as he stepped in front of her. As Yueying’s eyes widened, her husband dropped immediately to both knees and lowered his forehead to the ground, dirtying his clothes and skin in ways that being on the battlefield had not done.

“Please forgive Kongming’s wife, my lord,” Kongming said, his voice muffled by the dirt. “She had a terrible shock, for she had to escape from the castle with only Lady Li for company.” He paused. “If that is insufficient to garner your sympathy, Kongming begs that you forgive her on any merit of his service that he has earned.” When Lord Liu still remained silent, frowning deeply, Kongming added, “As you have said, my lord, we are in the middle of a battle. Please leave the small matter of disciplining Kongming’s wife to your servant himself.”

After a moment, Lord Liu sighed. “You are intelligent beyond measure, Kongming, but in this, your wife has surely pulled the blinds over your eyes. You are far too indulgent towards her.” His tone, so strict and lecturing, nearly had Yueying clenching her hands into fists again. “But there is no time now to fix that,” Lord Liu continued. “I will allow you to deal with her this once. Make sure that such insolence does not happen again.”

“Of course, my lord,” Kongming said. He stood, and turned around. His gaze caught Yueying’s. To anyone else, his flashing eyes would be a warning. But Yueying knew her husband, knew that he was saying, _I’m sorry_ ; knew that his message was, in truth, _I know you’re angry, but this isn’t the time to show it_.

She lowered her head. “This lowly wife thanks her lord for his compassion,” she said. “She thanks her husband for his kindness towards her.” Kongming’s ears, she knew, heard, _I know_ , and, _I’d rather he hit me_.

Pressing his lips into a line, Kongming jerked his head to the side. A dismissal, and also, _Take it that you’re indulging me in my interference, then, so that I will not have to live with my wife hating the lord I have chosen to serve_.

Right. Yueying bit back a sigh. She waited until both Lord Liu and Kongming had returned their attention back to matters of battle before she lifted her head. Without meeting Lady Li’s eyes, she headed over to Qilan. The younger woman had her hands tucked in front of her and her head lowered. Yueying reached out and slowly, tentatively, took those hands into her own, and closed her fingers around them.

“I’m glad that you are safe,” she murmured.

Qilan lifted her head. Her eyes were blank and her voice was toneless as she said, “Lady Huang, your grip is very tight.”

Immediately, Yueying let go. She took in the pale face; she watched as Qilan turned her face away from her. She nodded and stepped backwards. When she looked around her, she realised that Ladies Mi and Li weren’t looking at her, either.

She choked down a hysterical laugh.

What kind of world did she live in, she thought, when her husband’s kindness towards her only worsened the wounds of the one whom she actually loved? What kind of world did she live in that she would rather be beaten and abused just so she would not remind those around her of their own misfortune? What kind of world did she live in when a husband’s desire to not see his wife thrown to the ground by the force of an Alpha’s blow was rare enough to garner jealousy?

Perhaps it was not the world that was broken. Perhaps it was Yueying herself, for she truly was insolent. Perhaps it was Kongming, for he truly was too indulgent.

But she thought of Lady Gan, dead and abandoned for the crows to peck at for she was judged too unimportant to be retrieved. She looked into the distance and saw the silhouette of General Guan, astride a horse just like his own husband with his glaive gleaming in his hand while Lord Cao’s broadsword remained sheathed on his back.

She thought: If this was brokenness, then she would rather have it than what was supposedly whole.

***

_The four hundred and twelfth year of the Han Dynasty, early autumn  
Chibi, the Kingdom of Wu_

The seat behind him was empty, the breeze caused by Viceroy Zhou Yu’s departure tugging lightly at Kongming’s sleeves. He ducked his head down, a smile curving unbidden upon his lips, before he laid his fan across his chest and turned back to the battlefield.

Viceroy Zhou Yu had already found his horse. He was astride it, now, hands clenched around the reins and eyes fixed ahead of him, an Alpha burning bright with the heat of battle roaring in his blood. Kongming’s breath caught. 

For the briefest of moments, he saw not the Viceroy but General Zhao instead, galloping on a grey horse with his hair mussed and eyes distant, fixed upon Lord Liu in the distance. General Zhao, his face streaked with blood and his spear flashing bright silver in his hand as he fought off the enemies. General Zhao from the battle at Changban mere weeks ago, as he protected Lord Liu’s family and brought them back to safety.

Shouts rang out on the battlefield. Kongming blinked, brushing the mirage away with a flap of his fan. His heart immediately leapt to this throat when he saw that the Viceroy had been shot, an arrow – dark and ugly – protruding from his shoulder, having somehow found one of the spaces between the armoured plates to pierce flesh. As Viceroy Zhou stumbled forward, Kongming’s eyes narrowed and his knuckles turned white against the handle of his fan. He turned deliberately away from the sight.

A distance away from Viceroy Zhou, a man dressed in the dark colours of Cao Cao’s Generals tossed the bow in his hand to one of his soldiers. His sword’s blade caught the blazing sunlight as he drew it from its sheath and charged. Kongming’s breath caught in his throat. He took a step forward.

There was a hand on his elbow. He blinked, turning. Lord Liu was holding onto him, his grip likely the only thing keeping Kongming from falling off the platform and helplessly into the feverish battle that was raging far below. He tried to give his lord a smile, to assure him that he had no need to worry for his strategist’s safety, but Lord Liu was not thinking of him.

“If Yunchang had not been stolen from my side,” Lord Liu murmured, “he would have slain all of Cao Cao’s men on his own.” His lids lowered, casting dark shadows over his eyes and cheeks as his lips thinned. “This battle would already be long over. Perhaps we would not have even needed to ask Eastern Wu for aid.” 

Below, the Viceroy had ripped the arrow from his flesh, unsheathing his sword just in time to meet the enemy General’s charge. The sharp ring of steel meeting steel shrieked into the air, accompanying the shouts of the men as they fought against each other. Most of the platoon Cao Cao had sent had already fallen, their bodies littering the sand, but each fallen soldier seemed to galvanise his comrades further, heating up their blood as they sought vengeance.

“There is little time for such regrets, my lord,” Kongming replied, keeping one eye fixed upon Lord Liu even as he watched the rapid blows that were being exchanged throughout the battlefield. “In these new, uncertain times, we can only look forward, for turning back will sharpen the shadows of all those who wish to destroy us.”

The enemy General kicked sand into Viceroy Zhou’s eyes, making him cry out and stumble back. Kongming bit the inside of his cheek, hard, to swallow back his instinctive yelp, but there was no such need: General Zhao was already riding to the Viceroy’s aid, his spear flashing silver in the sun as he swung it towards the enemy. As Kongming watched, Cao Cao’s General ducked away from the blade and slammed his shoulder into Bailong’s side. The horse neighed, indignant, its hooves scrambling in the sand before it fell to the side. General Zhao barely managed to escape being crushed.

He had never heard of there being an Alpha General of such skill and ferocity in Cao Cao’s army. Who was he, and how could he have allowed Cao Cao to have hidden him away all of this while? Did he not fear the fading of his legacy if he didn’t prove himself, over and over, in battle, as was an Alpha’s lot in life in this time of tumult and chaos?

A thunderous voice ripped through the air. General Zhang rammed through three different men, sending them flying. The enemy General only had a single moment to turn around before General Zhang’s shoulder rammed into his stomach, throwing him up into the air. His sword flew from his fingers, spinning and spinning in the air like a fan in the hands of a skilled dancer.

“You’re right, Kongming,” Lord Liu said, his voice nearly buried beneath cries of battle and shrieks of steel. “To still mourn the wound of my second brother’s absence years after his loss… I am being foolish. Worse still, I am being unfair to the brothers who have remained loyal to me.”

The enemy General flipped once in the air, and landed on the sand on the balls of his feet. His sword stabbed into the ground next to him. But before he could reach for it, there were already two blades aimed at his throat. The enemy lifted his head, and then tipped it back.

“ _Lord Chancellor_!”

One cry from an unknown throat, and the combined army of Shu and Wu froze in unison. Kongming’s mouth, parted in half-formed reply to his Lord, clicked back shut. In the sudden stillness, a breeze caught the man’s hair, whipping strands of it into his eyes as he stared up defiantly. The Viceroy’s blade was so close to his neck that the movement touched skin to steel, a challenge that need not be spoken to be heard.

Cao Cao’s Chancellor. The man that, the reports told, he had raised from a mere quartermaster to his second-in-command; the orphan of a ruined family, lower than those common-born for how his ancestor had taken on the dishonourable role of a spy and later given up their name; one who was then placed on a pedestal higher than even those of greater birth could ever reach. A _beta_ who laid claim to a position that most Alphas could barely even breathe upon, much less touch.

Zhang Liao of Mayi. Kongming’s hand stilled where he had laid his fan across his chest.

“The stories have not exaggerated your ferocity in battle.” The silence that had gripped the battlefield made General Zhao’s voice carry far and out. The pale staff of his spear gleamed as he raised it away from Zhang Liao’s throat. 

“Yet it is a curious thing,” the Viceroy continued, picking up the thread from General Zhao. “Why would a Chancellor lead a platoon into battle, much less fall into a trap?”

“You phrased your question with propriety, Viceroy of Chibi,” Zhang Liao replied, “but your eyes give you away.” Despite the blade still pointed at his throat, his voice was level and his tone near insolent. “You mean to ask: Why would Lord Cao praise so highly a man whose incompetence has now been displayed for all to look at? You mean to imply: Surely it is because Lord Cao is no judge of a soldier’s character, much less his worth.”

“Have care, Chancellor of Wei,” the Viceroy said, his voice barely more than a hiss, “to not put words into my mouth.”

Despite the constant stories of Cao Cao’s tyranny, there were few defectors from Wei, and fewer still from high enough in rank to give information on the usurper’s hierarchy. There was one, a few years ago: an Alpha Colonel named Xiahou Ba, the son of a cousin of Xiahou Dun, one of Cao Cao’s Generals. Before his death, he had come to Kongming, and said a few words that now rose in his mind:

_Do not think that only Cao Cao himself can match you, Chief Strategist of Shu. In Wei, there is a man, one with a mind sharper than the most well-honed blade and a wrist as swift as the wind. His name is Zhang Liao, and he has Cao Cao’s favour._

Kongming looked down at the battlefield. Not far from Zhang Liao himself, Cao Cao’s flag was half-buried in the sand, smeared by the trampling of the hooves of horses and the feet of men. In reply to a long-dead man – murdered by the Wei General with whom he shared the source of his blood – he thought: _I believe that you are wrong, Xiahou Ba. If he is truly my equal, then his men would not be dead, and the symbol of his Lord’s authority would not be desecrated_.

“What reason have I to fear?” Zhang Liao said, his voice crackling through the still-silent battlefield like thunder. “All you can threaten me with is death, Viceroy of Chibi, and I have been a soldier for such long years that I no longer fear such a paltry thing.”

Even this far away, Kongming could see the sigh that went through Viceroy Zhou’s body. His heart ached, then: though he had met the man mere days ago, he could already see the streak of mercy that ran wide and deep within him. He only hoped that this time of constant war and chaos would not drain it. An Alpha like the Viceroy did not deserve having to live with hollowed-out insides.

“Bind him,” the Viceroy said. He lifted his sword when soldiers fell to obey, grabbing Zhang Liao by his arms and tying them together with the tatters of another nearby Cao flag. “In time, he will be of good use as a hostage.” 

Wei’s soldiers surrendered when they saw their Chancellor bound. As Kongming watched, the Viceroy raised a hand and allowed it to fall. Blood splattered the sand as the soldiers were killed. A wise decision, Kongming knew: with little to offer as a threat against Cao Cao, they would merely be a drain on Chibi’s stores of food.

Zhang Liao, Kongming noticed, did not once look away. He was too far from his soldiers for their blood to splash across his face, but the shadows of his lashes, sharp-spiking over his cheekbones, looked similar enough to serve as makeshift tears.

In the end, Kongming was the one who looked away.

*

The night had drawn long, and morning approached in but a few bare hours. The chaos of Chibi had barely been calmed and the soldiers had returned to either their duties or their beds. Now Lord Liu sat with the Marquis Sun Quan surrounded by their officers as dinner was served. What was planned as a celebration seemed now, in the wake of Zhang Liao’s escape and Cao Cao’s unexpected appearance, more like a funeral. To mourn the death of the rising hopes and thrumming ambitions that this afternoon had newly birthed. 

Lady Qiao, the Viceroy’s wife, moved along the lines of lords and warriors, serving them tea. Kongming blinked when he saw the omega in front of him with her head bowed, and barely managed a murmur of thanks before he reached out his hands. She did not move. Belatedly, he remembered his fan, and set it aside before he wrapped his fingers around the rim. She gave him a smile, the barest upward curve of the lips, before she moved down the line.

“You are a lucky man, Your Grace,” Kongming murmured after he took a sip of tea. “You have a wife as beautiful and graceful as a morning glory’s unfurling at the first streaks of dawn.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the first hints of a flush dust the sharp bones of Lady Qiao’s cheeks. He hid his smile behind the rim of his cup, and continued, “And your lord’s favour, at that.”

“Good fortune indeed,” the Viceroy murmured, smiling out of the corner of his mouth at his wife as he took his cup of tea from her. As host, he was the last to be served, and he shifted slightly in his seat so she could fold herself next to him. “Especially for a fool who allowed an enemy to escape due to an indulgence of whim.”

“A small matter, a small matter!” The Marquis of Eastern Wu had a voice unused to booming; it cracked slightly whenever he raised it above the volume required for speech. “Surely you already have some plans in that brilliant mind of yours to counter Cao Cao’s plot.”

“Of course,” the Viceroy said. His long fingers, curled around his cup, placed it on top of the low table in front of him. Kongming averted his eyes from them, for surely it was unfair that the Viceroy carried as much elegance in such a simple movement as he did when swinging his sword. “But I would rather hear the plans of Shu, first.” His eyes were piercing as he scanned from Lord Liu to Generals Zhang and Zhao before landing on Kongming himself. “You have all been very silent throughout dinner.”

“Forgive my lord,” Kongming said. “He is still in shock over the appearance of one of Cao Cao’s entourage.”

“One of Cao Cao’s retinue?” The Marquis’s younger sister, the Lady Sun, cut in before either her brother or the Viceroy could speak. Leaning forward, her brows creased, setting alight her dark eyes. “You mean that the rumours are true? Cao Cao’s so-called Empress was once Lord Liu’s sworn brother?” 

“Shangxiang!” Her brother snapped. “Mind your manners!”

“I am only speaking out what everyone else is already wondering,” the Lady Sun replied, one well-shaped brow arching as she tilted her head in her brother’s direction. “You would rather that I sit here completely silent, older brother, and pretend to be as much use as one of the cups you’re using for your tea?”

Flushing, the Marquis stood with enough force to set the table rattling. At the Viceroy’s side, the Lady Qiao winced, and hid her face behind her sleeve. “Surely the cups are of more use than you are, for _they_ know when their presence is needed and when it is not!”

His sister stared at him for a long moment, the slow thinning of her lips the only sign of her growing displeasure. All eyes turned towards them even as hands busied themselves with their cups or their chopsticks, fascinated by the tableau, yet putting on the pretence required by propriety that they were giving the siblings privacy.

“So that’s how it is,” the Lady Sun said finally. She stood and gave her brother a stiff bow with her hand on her breast. Like a soldier’s; like how she had behaved when she was first given the task to lure Zhang Liao and his men into their trap just earlier that day. “If that is the case, Your Eminence, then I will take my leave, for it seems that my presence is no longer required.”

“I,” the Marquis started. Too late – for the sound had already escaped his throat – he realised that there was no way he could recall his sister without making himself look a fool. He clicked his mouth shut, then, and turned away, making a move with his wrist as if he was flapping his sleeve at her. The Lady Sun’s lips thinned even further, but she said nothing as she turned and walked away.

Kongming watched her go. Perhaps it was the line of her shoulders and back, so terribly straight and strong; perhaps it was the curl of her embroidered vermillion robes, contrasting perfectly with the polished wooden floor; perhaps it was the rebellious strands of her hair, escaping from her pins and ties to tease the nape of her neck. Perhaps it was none of that at all, but instead the ghost of General Guan who hovered over her, the molten silver of his spinning glaive echoed in the fingers that twitched at her sides.

General Guan, standing in front of Cao Cao’s horse, his glaive tucked at his back and the moonlight streaming down upon him. A figure who had leapt out of the legends; a figure straight out of the memories of the lord and officers of Shu. A man untouched by time or distance or the exposed truth of his secondary sex. Yet he was no longer their General.

Instead, he was an Empress. An Empress who called his Emperor by his courtesy name while surrounded by their enemies. An Empress dressed not in the rich robes of wealth but the plain clothes of a soldier, with a body sketched with lines of grace and poise that flowed smoothly into those of strength and power.

An omega who had stood in front of his Alpha, who had waited in anticipation for his protection. An omega for whom none of Wei looked back towards for chances to protect, but who had been counted upon to ensure the safety of Alphas as they rode into the enemy’s camp to save the life of a mere beta. An omega and a beta, both treasured in ways that went so far beyond the assigned worth of their secondary sex that they seemed to be mist-made even as they stood in front of him. Even, Kongming recalled too clearly, when knelt and bound as Zhang Liao had been. 

Zhang Liao’s figure hovered at the back of his mind, seated indolently on the floor with his legs sprawled-spread, leaning against the pole he was tied to like an invited guest rather than an insolent prisoner. Zhang Liao’s tongue, darting out to trace the rim of a cup – far more overt and shameless than any village’s cheapest omega whores. Staring up at the Viceroy and yet, somehow, looking down on him even though all traditions and precepts dictated the Viceroy to be his superior.

“Forgive my sister,” the Marquis was saying, one unfolded hand extended towards Lord Liu. His smile was abashed. “I would say that her rudeness is unprecedented, Lord Liu, but unfortunately, I know her far too well. She has always been like this, and I should have known better than allow her to attend this dinner.”

Shaking his head, Lord Liu placed his cup of tea back on the small table. “Please, you have no need to apologise on her behalf,” he said. “She is spirited, and that has served us well in this afternoon’s battle.”

The Marquis pressed his lips into a thin line. After a moment, he sighed. “A stallion’s ferocity might be appreciated in the battlefield, but if it carries over in the stables, then it is nothing but a badly trained horse.” He rubbed his knuckles with his nose. “I worry a great deal about her future. Only an Alpha can handle her, it is clear, but where can one be found who would be willing to bring into their house someone so untamed?”

Kongming’s fingers stilled from where he was about to pick up his tea cup. He rested them on the edge of the table and let out a breath. He picked up his fan and carded his nails through the feathers, dislodging some of the dust that had settled between the bristles. 

“She is very beautiful,” Lord Liu said. His eyes darted towards the door through which the Lady Sun had left before turning back to her brother. “I do not doubt that, in time, there will be plenty who will be knocking on your door.”

“Excuse me,” Kongming murmured, rising from his seat. The Viceroy and his wife turned to him first. They moved with perfect synchrony; Kongming tempered the trip of his heartbeat with his fan across his chest as he bowed. Then, without waiting for their reactions, he left the great hall. He could feel eyes on him as he left; the Lady Qiao’s gaze, weighted with inexplicable knowing, seemed the heaviest. 

He found the Lady Sun in the corner of the hallway, tucked into the same alcove that he had commandeered for his pigeons to roost. She squatted there, feet spread and knees jutting out like a soldier, with her hands held out towards the white birds.

The Marquis Sun was righteous, Kongming knew; his words recalled the precepts of the past centuries that had been set down by Confucius and Mencius, and codified through Emperor Wu’s decree. Yet he looked at Lady Sun now and thought: perhaps she would be better served if she had been born the Lady Cao instead. 

—No, that could not be true, for who would willingly choose to share blood with a traitor and usurper instead of a Marquis with justice at his side? 

“This officer wonders at the reason why the Princess of Eastern Wu looks so intently upon his birds,” he said, keeping his tone light as he swept his robes out of the way to kneel next to her. “Surely they are not so strange to her?”

Her eyes darted towards him for a moment. Then, turning, she resumed her efforts in beckoning one of the pigeons closer. “You speak more sideways than anyone I have ever met,” she remarked. “I would say that is a characteristic of Shu, Chief Strategist, if I had not felt your lord’s eyes on me, his intentions flying true as any arrow from a well-trained archer’s bow.”

“While you speak in metaphors more than even your brother and the Viceroy Zhou,” Kongming returned, amused. He dug into his pockets for the small bag of seeds, holding it out to her. When she took it, he turned back to the birds and continued, “But you have not answered my question, Lady.”

“Is the answer not already obvious?” Lady Sun’s sigh ruffled the feathers of the pigeons who were now hopping towards her cupped hands to feed. “The intensity of my stare reflects the depth of my jealousy, Mister Zhuge. I wish that I had wings as wide as they do, and a body as light as theirs.” She gave him another sideways glance, her eyes barely creased by her soft-bitter smile. “Yet my body is far too heavy for flight, and my wrists are too weak for the weight of the claws of a tiger in the forest. There is little I can use to tear apart the gilded cage that traps me.”

Kongming lifted his eyes. On the bank opposite the one upon which this castle had been built was a forest, he knew, though he had never caught more than a mere glimpse of it: he had not had a chance to look at the view when he first arrived in Chibi, and now Cao Cao’s ships had covered it entirely. Merely a ruse, he knew now: the usurper had kept his strongest men with him, and now they hid in an encampment on _this_ side of the Yangtze, a short enough distance from this castle that the distance could be covered in less than an hour on horseback.

But they would return to that opposing bank. If not tonight, then when dawn came. When that happened, the combined armies of Shu and Eastern Wu would have to move quickly. For the sake of their men’s morale, if nothing else.

“I cannot give you wings, or strengthen your wrists,” Kongming said. “But I can give you a chance to perform deeds that, if you succeed, will perhaps give you a wind strong enough to break open the doors of your cage.”

“Oh?” the Lady Sun asked. Eagerness sparked light in her eyes, but she did not lean towards him, instead keeping still. Far more, Kongming noted, like a tiger awaiting the opportunity to strike than a stallion biting at the bit.

“We will have to attack soon,” Kongming said, looking out towards the fleet that crowded the bank opposite. “Cao Cao would surely have predicted such a thing, but unfortunately we must behave as he expects, for the soldiers’ morale will fail with each passing day without a victory. Yet, in order to gain a victory, we will require information.”

Lady Sun went even more still beside him. A few of the pigeons burbled with irritation when those hands holding their food stopped nudging in their direction. Spoiled, they simply stood there, waiting for her.

“You want me to go over there,” she said finally. “You want me to invade his camp as a spy.”

The work of a spy was lowly; to be a spy was to put into danger one’s life and one’s honour, without a promise of glory at the end. The Lady Sun was a princess, the daughter of a lord and a sister of two Marquises. Kongming raised his fan, splaying it over his mouth to hide his smile. A necessity, for both of them knew that the lowliness of the role being offered to her was the source of the spark in her eyes, but propriety demanded at least the pretence of denial.

“To gather information,” he corrected gently. “It will do us good to know the strategies that he uses to train his soldiers, or even the formations that his navy will use when they attack.” He cocked his head to the side. “A map of his camp, perhaps, or…”

“Or even the routes that he plans to take when attacking us with his cavalry and infantry,” Lady Sun continued for him. For the first time since he met her, her smile had widened beyond simple politeness or crooked wryness, and reached her eyes enough to crease the corners. “A sly plan, Mister Zhuge. Did you know that my brother and me used to go hunting in that very forest?”

“You mentioned tigers,” he replied lightly, shrugging. “I made my guesses.” 

“So, you did,” Lady Sun said. She shook her hands clean of seeds, scattering them upon the polished wooden floors, before she rocked back upon her heels and stood. “I have only one question left, Mister Zhuge, that will help me decide.”

“What is it?”

“Why would you give this task to me?” she asked, head tilted to the side. “Such glory would free you as well, Mister Zhuge. As brilliant as you are, you surely know this.”

Lowering his head, Kongming gave her a soft chuckle. “An astute observation from a brilliant mind,” he stated. When she tapped her foot once, impatient with the praise, he cupped his hands around one of his pigeons before lifting it up to her. “Look at these feathers, Lady Sun. Do you not find them beautiful?”

Reaching down, she stroked her fingertip over the edge of one wing. The pigeon cooed at her, questioning. Kongming tapped it gently on its head, asking for patience.

“You look at them with jealousy, Lady Sun, for you wish to become like them. I keep them for the opposite reason.” At the sound of another impatient tap, his lips tugged up into a lopsided smile. “Pigeons of the wild have wings of rough grey. They do not receive regular baths, and they are not nearly as carefully fed that their feathers remain glossy despite being in the rain.” 

He let go. The pigeon circled the hallway once before returning to him. “Pigeons of the wild,” he held out an arm for it to land, “do not have well-kept homes chosen for them to roost in.” It stuck its leg out, clearly waiting for a message to be pinned even though his hands were obviously empty aside from his fan. “They do not have a purpose of which they are reminded with every seed given to them.” Unfolding his legs, he stood to meet her dark, wide eyes.

“Do you find me worthy of pity, Lady Sun?”

She looked at him for a long moment. Her nails smoothed some of the flight-ruffled feathers of the pigeon on his arm as she sighed. “No,” she said finally. “Every person chooses their own ways of living, or have the choices already made for them.” Turning, she fixed her eyes upon the fleet of ships that, in the darkness, seemed to loom threateningly over them. 

“Not all of us are fortunate enough to have ruthless dragons on our side to cause the floods that would wash away our cage.”

Kongming’s breath caught in his throat. Lady Sun had surely mispronounced “ruthless” on purpose, sliding the tones such that it sounded more akin to the “meng” of “Mengde,” Cao Cao’s courtesy name. To have named Cao Cao to be a dragon when he had usurped the imperial throne, when he had snatched the dragon’s robe away from the shoulders of the rightful Han Emperor to place upon his own… 

Something must have shown on his face, for the edges of Lady Sun’s smile twisted. “I have heard: he proudly proclaims his wife to be the strongest warrior in his service,” she said. “I have heard: he claims it so often that his generals have memorised his precise words, yet none of Wei have protested them as a form of insult against their own capabilities.” 

Concubine Qilan’s words, breathed into his ears by Yueying’s voice: _A world in which he did not have to choose between his honour and his integrity_. _A world where he could carve out a place without bleeding himself out to build a shield of lies to protect him from the eyes that would cage him in._ He tucked away the memories back into a familiar-yet-dusty corner of his mind with his next breath.

Looking out of the window, he noticed the clouds gathering in the distance. The winds were rising, gathering strength as they passed Cao Cao’s ships. At this time of the night, the sails had surely been furled, but once they were released, the gales would drive the ships easily without need for soldiers to pull the oars. 

He smiled. “Soon,” he said, “it will rain.” 

A glimpse of a dragon always heralded the arrival of a storm, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Xiahou Ba: 夏侯霸, the son of Yuanrang’s cousin, Xiahou Yuan. In history, he defected to Shu only after the Sima clan has de facto rule of Wei. In this ‘verse, he’s not Xiahou Yuan’s son – mostly because I can’t find a place to put Xiahou Yuan so technically he doesn’t exist here – but just a distant cousin and member of the same clan, who defected to Wei much earlier and died in ignominy. Honestly, I’m just using the name and the Xiahou relation.


	6. Part V: 壮而行, “to strengthen your learning”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** First scene contains in-depth discussion of death wishes/suicidal ideations and the cycle of abuse and oppression (from the point-of-view of someone who is both abused and abuser). It also has very heavy implications of drug-induced marital rape. Yes, there are even more ways in which a woman’s life in ancient China can _really_ suck.
> 
> I’m not quite sure how to classify the second scene except, uh: heterosexual sex that’s not very heterosexual at all, actually. Basically: they are betas, they have both parts functioning, and they do things the opposite of the conventional way. They are both also overtly imagining other people during the scene, which is in Kongming’s POV

_The four hundred and thirteenth year of the Han Dynasty, late spring  
Chibi, the Kingdom of Wu_

The Marquis Sun of Eastern Wu was a kind man, Yueying reckoned. His army surely had as few men to spare as Lord Liu’s, yet he still sent some out into the mountains beyond the Yangtze river to look for the rare herbs that could only be found in the highlands. A necessary expense, the Marquis had said, his eyes fixed upon little Liu Shan, still merely an infant in Lady Mi’s arms; two-years-old, now, and still Lord Liu’s only child. Yueying supposed that he, a second Alpha son who inherited his position due to the early and untimely deaths of both his father and older brother, would know best.

Smoke from the pot of medicine filled the kitchens, thick and heavy and noxious. Yueying breathed through her mouth, not trusting the cloth she held over her face. This dose was high enough that even the scent could trip an unsuspecting omega straight into heat if they weren’t careful; a mixture so strong that Lady Li had been instructed to move to the wing as far from the kitchen as possible before Yueying had begun her preparations.

Those orders from General Zhang had come as a surprise. For a man who had kidnapped his wife at a too-young age for the sake of having good quality heirs, he did not seem to mind that Lady Li had yet to give him a child. Perhaps, Yueying thought wryly to herself, he had realised that Lady Li had not yet gone into heat with him because he hadn’t the capability to make her feel safe enough.

Or she might be giving the General far too much credit. More likely, he thought that his older brother’s need for heirs was greater than his own, and hence dared not make any claim to the rare herbs that were needed to induce a heat.

Hissing out another breath through her teeth, Yueying pushed the thought away. She pushed away, too, the thought that Lady Li still hadn’t forgiven her for having a husband who wouldn’t punish her for speaking out; that, in Lady Li’s eyes, Yueying’s skin having been left unblemished after her insolence against Lord Liu might as well have been a crime.

Instead, she focused on wrapping a rag thickly around the handle of the ceramic pot, lifting it from the stove before pouring it out into the bowl. The liquid was pure black, the darkness of shadows ripped viciously from the ground, and so viscous that there was no danger of Yueying spilling even a single drop onto the tray even as she tipped the pot further than she should. 

“You have been here for two days now, haven’t you?” 

Yueying lifted her hands from the sides of the tray. She took a ceramic plate from a nearby shelf and covered the bowl. Then she turned and, with her hands placed on her lap, made a small bow to the woman standing at the doorway. “Lady Mi,” she greeted softly. Nodding, she said, “Yes, Lady. If the pot is not carefully watched over and the fire maintained at a certain height, it will not be effective.”

“A lot of work for a gamble,” Lady Mi said. “Work that I should be doing instead of you.” 

“I do not mind it,” Yueying said, which was not a lie. She resented that it had to be done, that Qilan would have to be fed this poison, but she preferred to be the one doing it. If she was powerless to protect Qilan, then her selfishness desired to be the one performing the act of harm.

Lady Mi sighed. She swept into the room, her robes swaying around her feet. The cloth ill-fitted her, now; she had lost a lot of weight ever since the battle at Changban, so much that Lord Liu had commented that his wife now made him look like a poor man, unable to feed her properly.

“When I first married Liu da-ge, older sister boiled the medicine for me,” she said, voice barely above a murmur. She stopped next to the squat kitchen table, tracing her fingertips over the unpolished wood, following the grain. “She told me that, when time and chance came, it would be my duty to do the same for little Qilan.” 

Lady Gan had been dead for more than a full year, now. Had her body fully rotted away, abandoned as it had been back in that village near Changban Hill? Was there still anything left of her earthly form other than bones baked and bleached white by the sun? Yueying did not know; could not even guess. Kongming had brought them all far away from Changban Hill, and they had left Lady Gan behind like Lord Liu and his Generals had left behind so many other villagers, so many other dead.

“But I am not great-hearted like my older sister,” Lady Mi continued. “I am the first wife now, so I should be, yet I could not help but fear that Lord Liu will forget Ah Dou,” little Liu Shan’s nickname, Yueying remembered, given for the boy never seemed perturbed or afraid of any of the numerous shocks that had come into his life, “once he had another child.”

“The young lord is Lord Liu’s heir,” Yueying murmured. “He would not be forgotten so easily.”

“Ah Dou is his oldest son and heir,” Lady Mi nodded, “and I am his first wife.” Shaking her head, she dusted a nearby stool with her greying sleeve before she dropped down onto it. “These are titles that should bring comfort. But, Yueying, the chill in my bones refuse to be shaken.”

_I know_ , Yueying wanted to say, but swallowed it back. She still remembered Lady Mi’s resentful gaze when Kongming knelt at Lord Liu’s feet for her sake. Yueying was the lowest-ranked wife out of all of them, yet Lady Mi’s eyes surely saw her as the most fortunate, for she had a husband who would care if his wife had her bones broken by his lord.

“Were you well-loved by your brothers, Lady?” Yueying asked instead, scrambling for another topic that would neither bring Lady Mi more grief nor cause Yueying to give even more of herself away than she already had.

Lady Mi laughed. “My father was a fortunate man, and wise in his choice of wives. I was the only beta girl among a near horde of Alpha children.” She folded her hands in front of her. “I was spoiled and pampered with plenty of attention lavished upon me.” After a moment, she shrugged. “I suppose my brothers loved me, as they would love a particularly precious chess piece.”

At Yueying’s silence, Lady Mi lifted her head and laughed quietly. “Few daughters and fewer wives have the privilege of remaining ignorant of the truth of the world and their place within it, Yueying, and I am not one of them.” She spread out her hands. “How can I believe myself truly beloved when I was married off for the sake of an alliance? When I was made into a second wife, instead of first like my brothers and father had always told me that I deserved?”

Here, two more pieces of Yueying’s fortune revealed: her own father had never once told her that there was anything she deserved, and hence she had never had a chance to raise her own hopes; and her father was never a warlord, and would rather tuck himself in the corner with his books than mire himself into political alliances and influences. 

Thus, she had had the freedom to find Kongming on her own.

“I didn’t think you were ignorant,” Yueying said. When Lady Mi beckoned her forward, she headed for the table and sat herself down onto another chair. “I was merely surprised, Lady, that you would put those thoughts into words instead of keeping them to yourself.”

“You have made your displeasure about the situations of wives far too clear for me to bother,” Lady Mi pointed out, sounding amused. “What need is there to pretend obliviousness with someone who clearly saw things as you did?” Her hands fell back to the table. After a moment, her voice softer now. “When surrounded by need for pretence and propriety, can’t one seek out and treasure brief moments of honesty?”

Yueying folded her hands in her lap. She did not speak. If she were more of a fool, if she were less used to Kongming’s circumlocutory and contradictory ways of speech and thinking, she would have believed Lady Mi’s words to be the praise that they sounded like.

But she was not.

“Perhaps I should be glad to have married a clever man,” Lady Mi said, her eyes turned downwards, her fingers once more tracing the grain of the wooden table. “Perhaps I should be glad that Liu da-ge has already calculated the dark desires of my heart, and hence kept me away from preparing this medicine.” 

“A lack of care in brewing,” Yueying said, weighing each word carefully, “might result in the medicine becoming poison.” One that would lead to a slow and painful death, the body wreaked by seizures until vessels in the heart burst from the stress.

All those who would become wives knew that. Even Yueying knew: when she was very young, a group of village omegas who had taken pity on her, a motherless beta daughter, and took her in to teach her all of the knowledge and arts that her father, a male beta, would never have had need to understand. Lady Mi, born in an estate that was surely filled with generations of mothers and grandmothers, would know even better.

“Then she would know the pain that I’ve had to live with this past year,” Lady Mi said. When she lifted her eyes, they were bright with anger, with hatred. “Then she would know how I have suffered all this time, having had to live this— This—”

“You would,” Yueying interrupted, “poison one who should be your little sister, because she saved your life?”

“Saved my life!” Lady Mi barked a laugh, loud and harsh. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears escaped nonetheless, trailing down her cheeks. “Saved my life just for me to hear that my husband values me as much as the mere sleeves of his robes!” Her fingers started to tremble. “If I had died then, if Qilan had allowed me to throw myself into the well, then at least I would be remembered for sacrificing myself to guarantee the life of Liu da-ge’s son.” Her breath hitched. “I might even be _honoured_ for it.”

Standing, Yueying took two cautious steps forward. She reached out her hands. “Lady Mi,” she tried to start.

Lady Mi slapped her fingers away. “You will not understand!” the older woman snapped out. “Your husband loves you enough to go on your knees for your sake when you threw a tantrum like a child. How could you… How _would_ you…”

_My husband does not love me,_ Yueying wanted to say. _My husband loves a General whom he will never allow himself to desire, and now he is falling for a Viceroy that he already hates himself for wanting_. But none of that mattered, for, to Lady Mi, love mattered very little. It was not love that she wanted; that she needed. It was not the love of her husband that Lady Mi resented Yueying for having.

It was his respect. Kongming looked at her and did not love her, but he respected her enough that he would rather not see her bruised and broken. Though nothing she would ever say would change his mind regarding any of his beliefs and opinions, he respected her enough to understand that she had wishes and desires and thoughts of her own, all of which had nothing to do with him. He looked at her like she was a _person_ , wholly within herself.

What fortune, what privilege, to not be seen as a mere incubator for future heirs, like Qilan; or a faceless caretaker for his child, like Lady Mi; or a toy to be taken and claimed, like Lady Li. What luck Yueying had, to have found Kongming; to have found a man who looked at her and did not mind that she did not exist merely to serve him.

“All I have left is to care for Ah Dou,” Lady Mi said. Her voice had grown quiet and heavy with a bone-deep exhaustion. “For the child of a sister I am not even allowed to mourn.” Lord Liu had said, Yueying remembered, that Lady Mi donning of mourning clothes for the abandoned Lady Gan would only lower the morale of the soldiers, and she should instead put on a cheerful face. 

“I look at his face and I can only see the desperation on hers when she handed him to me,” Lady Mi continued. “I look at his face and I can only see the moment when she was thrown from the carriage and landed in the dirt.” Pressing her sleeves against her eyes, she took in a deep, shuddering breath. 

“Tell me, Yueying,” she said, voice steadier now. “Why should I be glad that Qilan saved my life?”

“I don’t know,” Yueying admitted. When Lady Mi lowered her sleeve to look at her, Yueying met her gaze, and said, “But I do know that none of that is Qilan’s fault, and Lord Liu’s cruelties should not be given to her to try to repay.”

Lady Mi laughed again, shaking her head. “To be so fair, to keep such an even hand…” She reached out and grabbed Yueying by the collar, pulling her down until their faces were mere inches apart. “What can I do against Liu da-ge, Yueying? What can I do against him that will fill up this aching hollow in my heart?” When she let go, Yueying stumbled back, barely keeping her balance with a hand on a table.

“Better to hate Qilan instead,” Lady Mi said. “At least then I can do something to her.”

She was truly Lady Gan’s sister indeed, Yueying thought wryly to herself. Lady Gan had held tightly to the authority she had had over the other wives, for they were the only ones upon whom her actions had any impact.

Precepts and traditions instructed them to behave with fairness and respect. But how could the Ladies Gan and Mi, how could any of them, do so when all they received was hatred at best and apathy at worst? When the respect they could gain was merely through dying for those very precepts and traditions that would be used to trap the future generations even further?

Looking at Lady Mi for a moment, Yueying made a decision. “There is nothing I can say or do that will alleviate your pain,” she said. “Still…” Before the other woman could interrupt her, Yueying folded her legs, and knelt on the kitchen floor and lowered her head until her eyes were barely an inch from the ground. The stone was cold, the chill stabbing through her skin, through her bones, to prick at her soul.

She took a deep breath, and ripped out yet another part of herself to offer. She said, “Yueying begs you, Lady Mi, to not take your anger for Lord Liu out on Qilan. She begs this of you not for Qilan’s sake, but of your own.”

“My own,” Lady Mi repeated.

“Yes, Lady,” Yueying said. “Such actions are unworthy of you.” She paused for a moment, letting out a breath through her teeth, before she continued. “Yueying believes that you are far greater, and far more honourable, a person than this.”

Lady Mi remained silent for long moments. “What use is the belief of one such as you?” she finally.

“Though Yueying is but a wife, and the status of her birth is as low as that of ants,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut, “Yueying still believes.” Taking another breath, she dealt the final blow: “Please, Lady Mi: for the sake of Yueying’s respect for you, do not do this.”

The sound of another sharp, barking laugh filled the air. “Come on, Yueying, get up.” When Yueying folded herself back until she was sitting on her calves, still on her knees, instead of prostrate on the floor, Lady Mi took hold of her chin and jerked her head up. Their eyes met. 

“You are well-matched to your husband indeed,” Lady Mi said. “Both of you have quite a way with words.” Yueying remained silent, and Lady Mi laughed again, letting her go. “But, alright. I will try for to be more even-handed with Qilan. For your _respect_ ,” she turned that word into mockery, “for me.”

Forcing her eyes to not close, Yueying nodded. Then she pressed her forehead once more to the floor. “Yueying thanks Lady Mi for her kindness.”

Lady Mi stood. Her robes brushed against Yueying’s face, nearly hard enough to slap, as she spun on her heel and left the room. Yueying waited until the sound of her footsteps had faded entirely before she took a deep breath and rose to her feet. She headed to the table next to the stove: the medicine was still hot.

The revelation of the shattered pieces of Lady Mi had taken half an hour, maybe even less. Far longer, Yueying knew, that it had taken Lord Liu to speak that line that had caused it, and far less than would be required for Lady Mi to try to put herself back together. She had, after all, not even began after a whole year.

Yueying looked down at her hands. They were shaking. She pressed down against the counter, curling her fingers until her nails scraped over the wood. She counted her breaths, and used the warmth of the late spring air to stitch the broken pieces of herself back into place. These threads would not hold for long, she knew, but she did not need them to.

Then she straightened. She picked up the tray holding the bowl of medicine and left the kitchen for Qilan’s quarters. Unlike when she had just been taken as concubine, she was housed here, in Viceroy Zhou Yu’s estate in Chibi, in the farthest corner of the wing that had been given for the wives of Shu. (Lady Qiao, Viceroy Zhou’s wife, lived in the same place as her husband; a fact that had so surprised Lord Liu that he couldn’t stop himself from exclaiming repeatedly over it once he had found out.)

She knocked just once, and waited for the short moments until Qilan slid the door open. Her dark, wide eyes took one look at the bowl in Yueying’s hand before her shoulders shook. 

“It must be a special kind of cruelty,” Qilan said, voice soft enough to be nearly inaudible. “For you of all people to deliver this to me.”

“I requested for the honour,” Yueying replied, keeping her eyes steady on the younger woman’s. The new-made threads within her were threatening to break, but she would not let them.

After a moment, Qilan nodded. She stepped away from the doorway, allowing Yueying entrance. Only when Yueying had placed the tray on top of her tiny table and Qilan had closed the door, when they were kept safe by the confines of the small room, did Qilan speak again: “You mean, you volunteered so Lady Mi doesn’t have a chance to poison me.”

Yueying’s hands stilled. She flattened them on top of the table. She should not be surprised that Qilan had figured things out so quickly, and yet she was. “Yes,” she nodded.

“Ah,” Qilan said. She was standing there, next to the table with the tea tray, with her hands tucked between her thighs and her chin resting on top of her chest. But her eyes, her beautiful dark eyes, were so bright. “So, your presence is not merely cruelty, but kindness as well.” 

Despite the situation, despite the medicine still cooling on the table like a spectre of horrors that refused to be forgotten, Yueying smiled. She did not ask Qilan why, unlike Lady Mi, she had never thought of death; that, no matter what humiliations and hurts she had suffered through, she still wanted to live. Both of them remembered General Guan perfectly. They both knew the gamble Qilan had taken, and that she was still waiting for the day when she would know if it had paid off.

“Will you do me a favour, Qilan?” Yueying asked. When the younger woman cocked her head to the side in silent question, Yueying tried for a tentative smile. “The next time Lady Mi acts in a way that results in your undeserved pain…” She knew, too, that Qilan knew what it was that she deserved, and Yueying had no need to fear that she would take pain upon herself on misguided belief that it was her due. 

“Will you remind her that Yueying believes that she can behave with more honour and fair-handedness? That, for the sake of Yueying’s respect for her, Lady Mi should not stoop to such terrible behaviour?” If Qilan wished to live, then the least Yueying could do was to make living not unbearable for her. But she would need Qilan’s help for it, too.

For Yueying was far too powerless to truly save her.

Qilan looked at her for a long moment, silent. “I will,” she said finally. “But… What have you _done_ , Yueying? What have you…?” She faltered, seemingly losing her words entirely, and only shook her head.

_Given up my pride_ , Yueying thought, wry. But she had so little already, so what mattered that she had portioned out even more, especially when it meant Qilan’s safety? What else could she have done except surrender another part of herself in exchange for her selfish desire to be met? What mattered that the pieces of herself were torn apart, because she was armed with threads that could be strengthened by the sight of Qilan’s smile?

“Very little,” Yueying said. She glanced at that bowl of medicine again. “If I truly could do anything for you, you would not have this shadow hanging over you. This is the least I could do.”

“You…” Qilan started before she clicked her mouth back shut. She let out a laugh, the sound bright and clear-ringing like a bell, and her eyes crinkled up at the sides. “You have a bad habit, Yueying, of putting down the kindnesses that you give to others. Not just to me, but to Lady Mi as well.”

“I have done nothing!” Yueying blurted out. She winced at the sound of her voice echoing back to her from the too-close walls of the room; that was far louder than she had intended. “What use is there is to speak to Lady Mi, when I can’t actually stop her from scolding or beating you unfairly? What use is there for making sure that this,” she swung a hand out towards the bowl violently, “isn’t poorly made, when you still have to suffer through the heat it brings and Lord Liu’s attentions?”

_What use is there in anything I can do, anything that I have ever done?_ “I—” Yueying stopped, her voice freezing in her throat.

Qilan’s eyes were very close to her. Qilan’s hands were very solid on her cheeks. Qilan’s breaths were very warm on her lips. Yueying stared. She did not even dare to move.

“When you are as lowly as I am,” Qilan said, “even the smallest of kindnesses matter, for they are rare.” Her fingers brushed over Yueying’s hairline, terribly slow and terribly gentle. “When you are as lowly as I am, anyone who listens holds a treasured place in your heart. And those who try to do something to ease my suffering…” Her knuckles skittered over the curve of Yueying’s cheek, and Yueying could not breathe. “Do you know what you have done for me?”

“I—” Yueying tried again. She closed her eyes, and tried to shake her head. Her hands trembled and it took her three tries before she could catch hold of Qilan’s wrists. “Please,” she whispered. “Please, I didn’t do any of this for you to—” she shook her head. “Please don’t do this because you think this is a form of repayment for the debts you owe me.” 

“Do you think that’s what’s happening, here?” Qilan asked. Her voice was so soft. It was so steady.

Yueying squeeze her eyes tighter shut. _I don’t know_ , she wanted to say. _What other reason would you have to do this?_ , she wanted to ask. She could only swallow hard and shake her head. “Qilan,” she whispered. “Please, I…”

“You’re not telling me to go away,” Qilan said. “You’re not telling me that you don’t want this.”

Every tradition and precept Yueying knew told her she should not want this; that she should ask Qilan to stop. They were both wives, beholden and belonging to their husbands, and their desires should not go beyond those men. Yueying shouldn’t have these desires because her hands were too weak and her wrists were too thin, and no matter how much she wanted to protect Qilan, to shield her and provide for her and build a home for her with her bare hands, she couldn’t, she couldn’t—

Qilan’s gentle hands travelled down Yueying’s body, curving around her bound breasts. Nails scraped over her stomach and down to her hips. Long fingers wrapped – tentative, so tentative – around Yueying’s cock, and _squeezed_.

Yueying’s legs turned to water. She fell to her knees, but the _thud_ of them hitting the ground was drowned out by her own rasping gasps. She was hard, so hard, and her insides were burning up, far too hot, like flames had ignited within them and she wanted nothing more than to— than to—

Forcing her eyes open, she looked up to Qilan. Qilan stood there, her pale skin set alight by the light of the setting sun that came through the slats that served as windows. Her fingers trailed gently over Yueying’s cheeks. “You’re not telling me to go away,” Qilan breathed out. “You…”

Slowly, Yueying convinced her head to turn. Her lips dragged over Qilan’s palm, tasting salt and skin. A shudder went down her spine, and she dug her nails into her palm. “I want,” she murmured, voice somehow steady despite the desire wreaking through her body. “But not now. Not yet.”

“Not yet?” Qilan asked.

Nodding, Yueying reached up. She took Qilan’s hand in both of her own, closing her eyes as she pressed the knuckles against her forehead. “Not until you no longer have to depend on me to live a bearable life,” she said. “Not until you can look at me without need for gratitude. Not until…” She swallowed hard, for she knew her next words would set her upon a path from which she could not return. 

“Not until the day comes when I can receive you properly into my house, with my hand on yours to guide you over the threshold while a bride’s red veil covers your eyes.”

The hitch of Qilan’s breath echoed in the room. “That is not until both Liu da-ge and Mister Zhuge are dead,” she whispered.

Yueying smiled, mirthless and bitter. “Outside these doors, they are fighting a losing war,” she said. She could already see the signs. Kongming was doing his best, but _something_ happened last year – near the time when they had all arrived here at Chibi – that destroyed the morale of the soldiers, and the war had gone downhill from there. Now, even the best efforts of Viceroy Zhou and Kongming put together had them grasping at straws.

Even if she hadn’t read the signs, the poor state of the war on the Shu-Wu side was easy to understand: the weeping of the soldiers’ widows rang out so loudly every single night.

“Once they have lost, Lord Liu will have to die,” Yueying continued. “No matter the choices that will be given to him, Kongming will die alongside him, too.” Her husband had had far too many chances to change, and he had rejected all of them. The path he had chosen would lead to his death; a death that he would choose as well.

There was a thought niggling at the back of her head, half-drowned by her still-burning desire: if Lord Liu had to die, then so would all those who were tied to him, for that was the way of this age of war and chaos. But General Guan was in Wei; but General Guan was Wei’s Empress, with the Emperor’s ear. That was… not hope, not exactly, but _possibility_.

Once more, she was depending on decency of those who had hands and wrists stronger than her own. Then again, who but those who were born Alphas weren’t?

Yueying rocked back on her heels, and stood. “Until then,” she lifted Qilan’s hand to her lips, pressing soft kisses on the knuckles, “you must take the medicine.”

Looking at her for a long moment, Qilan laughed. She shook her head, and turned towards the table where the tray sat. “What kind of world do we live in, Yueying, when we now must wish for our husbands’ deaths for the sake of some kind of happiness?” 

She lifted the plate covering the bowl. Picking it up, she drained the medicine in a single, long gulp. When she placed it back on the tray, the _clack_ of porcelain on wood was rang out like the single beat of a war drum.

“An unfair and unjust world,” Yueying murmured in reply. When Qilan turned to her, she took her hand again, and led her to the bed. She pulled the blankets away until the cotton sheets were exposed. When Qilan laid herself down upon them, Yueying reached out. She tucked away a few strands that had gotten loose from Qilan’s braid before her fingers trailed down slowly to brush over the curve of those pale cheeks.

“Don’t think of me when Lord Liu is here,” Yueying said. “Please.”

“I won’t,” Qilan said. Her voice was still steady despite the flush rising to her cheeks, and her eyes were clear. “His presence doesn’t deserve a single thought of you, Yueying.”

Despite herself, Yueying laughed. She leaned down, and pressed a long, lingering kiss to Qilan’s forehead. When she pulled back, she indulged herself with another glance before she turned away. She picked up the tray, and left the room for the kitchen again.

After washing bowl, tray, and pot, Yueying dried her hands. She pushed away thoughts of Qilan, of how she must look like now, as she headed for the grand hall where the lords were having dinner with their generals, strategists, and high-born wives. Slipping in, she skirted around the sides of the room, heading for Lord Liu using the long way that would allow her to remain inconspicuous.

“Lord Liu,” she greeted once she had folded herself once more to her knees and placed her forehead on the floor. “Concubine Qilan has taken her medicine, and she is ready for you.”

“I see,” Lord Liu said. There was the sound of shifting porcelain and scraping wood as Lord Liu untucked himself from his sitting position. Or so Yueying guessed: she wasn’t yet allowed to lift her head. “If you will excuse me, Marquis Sun?”

“Huh? Of course,” the Marquis said. Underneath the sounds of fading chatter, Yueying could hear flapping cloth. Likely the Marquis waving a hand. “Best of luck with your endeavours tonight, Lord Liu.”

As Lord Liu stood, Yueying rose to her feet as well. She kept her chin tucked to her chest and her eyes lowered to the ground as she followed Lord Liu out of the grand hall. Even when scarlet-lined white flashed at the corner of her vision, she did not turn around. She did not want to look at Kongming; not right now.

She followed Lord Liu to the hallway leading to Qilan’s rooms before he seemed to remember her presence. “Oh, Lady Huang,” he said. His sleeve fluttered in the air as he waved a careless hand. “You’re dismissed.”

Yueying bowed low. She stayed where she was, watching Lord Liu’s feet as he stopped at the door of Qilan’s quarters, knocked, and entered without waiting to be invited. Only when he had closed the door behind him did she straighten up again. 

Eight years it had been since Kongming entered Lord Liu’s service, and Yueying had followed her husband. Eight years of exposure to Lord Liu and General Zhang and their selfishness.

A soft, bitten-off cry rang in the air. Qilan’s voice. Yueying turned her back, but she could not make her feet move. She sank her nails into her palm, using that pain to ground herself; to remind herself of her own powerlessness, and the futility of bursting through those doors to tear Lord Liu away from Qilan. To tear out his throat. 

He would soon be dead, Yueying told herself. That meant that Kongming would soon be, too, but…

It seemed that, after these eight years, Yueying had finally learned the lesson of selfishness. She had learned it so well that she could now use it to turn the fragile threads holding the pieces of herself together into steel.

***

_The four hundred and thirteenth year of the Han Dynasty, late spring  
Chibi, the Kingdom of Wu_

A storm was raging on the Yangtze river, drops of water beating hard enough upon the waters to raise foam that licked at the banks, so white that it showed through the heavy darkness. The noise of breaking wood grew louder and louder, reaching its crescendo at the same time as lightning flashed between the clouds. Just in time to show the wreckage of the ships as hulls broke into useless driftwood, bobbing on the water to the beat of the growling thunder seconds before being devoured.

Most of Lord Liu and Marquis Sun’s flags had been rescued from the ships already, but there were still torn and tattered pieces remaining. The deep yellow of Lord Liu’s name and the shimmering vermillion of the Marquis’s caught the lightning: just a single brief moment before they were dragged down by sodden wood and salt-encrusted steel. 

If Kongming was a superstitious man, he would have thought that to be a sign. He leaned his shoulder against the window’s frame, lidding his eyes as the wind skittered over his face and hair. Then again, perhaps no superstition was needed: the broken ships were some of their last, and the attack where they had used them was meant to break at least part of Cao Cao’s fleet. Instead, they had barely managed to escape with the majority of their already-depleted navy intact.

Couple that with the epidemic that was still sweeping over their soldiers, a consequence of the gift of plague-ridden corpses Cao Cao had sent last midwinter; the lack of funds for provisions, which seemed to not touch the Wei army at all, even though their stronghold was so much further away than Eastern Wu’s; and Viceroy Zhou’s distraction with his newborn daughter… All that seemed to be left of the war were a few unbroken pieces of straw hiding amidst a collapsed hut.

“Have you ever wondered how history will judge us?” A single step accompanied each word, breaking through both the thunder’s rumbling and the dark clouds of Kongming’s thoughts. “Will we be painted as fools, rejecting the unity offered by one who held the Mandate of Heaven in his sanctified hands? Or will we be written as martyrs, giving up lives and homes for the sake of resisting against the typhoons whipped up by a tyrant who sold his soul to the lords of Hell for the sake of power?”

Not for the first time, Kongming wondered if thoughts of a person could summon them to his side. When he turned, it was Viceroy Zhou who stood there, barely an inch away, his eyes fixed upon the storm that raged just outside them. Strands of his hair were plastered to his face, and droplets of water stained his maroon robes. 

“Even the cleverest of strategists knows nothing of the thoughts of their descendants,” Kongming replied, turning back to stare out of the window. Most of the ships had sunk completely by now, leaving no sign of their presence. The fishes would feed well on the corpses of soldiers and sailors both tonight, and there was not enough rice to spare to throw into the river like the villagers had done for Qu Yuan. 

He lifted an eyebrow at Viceroy Zhou over his shoulder. “Are you worried, Your Grace, about what your daughter will think of you in the future if you die today?”

Lips twisting into a grim smile, the Viceroy took the single step that brought him closer to Kongming. Despite the differences in their secondary sex, the Alpha was only an inch taller and their sleeves brushed against each other.

“I worry more that she will not live to see her first year,” the Viceroy said. Kongming shifted to the side when the Viceroy slapped his hands down upon the window’s sill, his eyes darkening as he watched the last ship’s prow sink beneath the waters. “If things continue like this, Cao Cao will win. When that happens, we will be left with nothing.”

Despite himself, Kongming could not help but laugh. He splayed his hand upon the wood in front of him. “Your estate still stands, Your Grace,” he pointed out. “The koi in your garden’s tranquil pond still swim with ease.” Sliding his eyes over, he tried to curve his lips up into a smile to lessen the sharp prick of his words.

But it seemed that the smile flashed bitterness instead, for the Viceroy rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “I should not have said that,” he admitted, voice quiet. “Not to a wanderer who has been without a home to properly call his own.”

Viceroy Zhou Yu was a good man, Kongming reminded himself, one who owned many admirable qualities. It was unfair and lowly of Kongming to begrudge him his trait of humility, useless for him to want to hate the man when he looked at him like this: a sheepish smile hovering on his lips, his gaze bright beneath his thick, water-laden lashes. Never mind that this sight made Kongming feel as if he had breathed the storm within himself and that it now raged among his insides, the force of the winds making his nerves thrum until his fingers were shaking on the handle of his fan.

(Years and years had passed since the breaking of his hopes, yet Kongming was still fool enough and weak enough to remember General Zhao again. They had regained some sort of cordiality as time passed, but the General had never taken the chance to confide in him after that fateful conversation about General Guan.

Not that he would need to, nowadays: he had recently married, the celebration one of the bright spots in the past months spent in Cao Cao’s long shadow. He had his bride – one of the Marquis’s nieces, his older brother’s eldest daughter – as his confidant now, surely. 

Never mind that it was obvious to all eyes that General Zhao had agreed to the marriage because the news would bring a spark of life back to their sorrow-burdened soldiers. Never mind that the bright eyes of his too-young bride had dulled since the wedding, and the General had become even more reticent. Such private miseries were surely sacrifices worth making in times of war.) 

“Do not look down on us so, Your Grace,” Kongming said finally. The silence had grown too heavy, and the sight of the Viceroy’s bowed head unbearable. He laid his fan on top of the sill, running his fingertips over the feathers “Lord Liu once commanded great swathes of land. Once this battle has been won, he will have Jingzhou to call his own again, and from that stronghold Shu can once more become great.”

That was, after all, part of the agreement that Lord Liu and Marquis Sun had come to when the Lady Sun married the former. The wedding had only been three months past, as winter was leaving the lands and spring winds blew new life in. Too little time for the memories to fade; Kongming could still recall perfectly the Lady Sun as she was led from her bridal carriage. The crimson cloth might have covered her face, but the white-knuckled grip she had had on her brother’s fingers had spoken plenty.

As much as the Lady Sun’s face had spoken tonight, when Lord Liu had excused himself early from dinner when he had received the news that his concubine’s heat had started.

(Another sacrifice for the sake of war. How many would be required, Kongming wondered, until it was satisfied? How many more would be left with their hands grasping at nothing, would be left without hands at all, for how they had been devoured?)

“Do you think that we can win?” Viceroy Zhou asked, his voice quiet.

Outside, the storm was starting to die. Having devoured both bodies and wood, it seemed satiated for the moment. As the clouds shifted and the moon’s light peeked out behind them, the darkness beyond the width of the Yangtze coalesced back into shapes. Cao Cao’s fleet was still numerous enough to cover the opposite bank, and Kongming knew that he had even more soldiers tucked in the encampment hidden by the ships, enough for the rumours that he had sent a great number of them home weeks ago to help with the spring planting to ring with some truth.

He let out a breath. “Do you think that it will be easier if we give in?” he asked in return, his voice equally soft.

Viceroy Zhou’s breath hitched, a sound barely audible enough to be heard but, surely, ringing far too loudly in the man’s own ears. Kongming slid his gaze over to the Alpha, watching him as he picked up his fan again, laying it over his chest as he waited for the answer.

“To do so is to behave like cowards,” the Viceroy said.

Nodding, Kongming smiled. “It is a coward’s way,” he agreed. “But it is also, Your Grace, the way that will save the lives of our soldiers. It is the way that will put no more strain upon your people as they struggle to feed the army when there are so few able hands left behind on the farms.” He let out a breath. “It is the way that will earn us the scorn and rancour of our descendants, the way that will leave the children of both Eastern Wu and Shu bereft… but which will ease the lives of the common people, who are unwillingly part of either.”

During the battle at Changban that had preceded Kongming’s race to Chibi to seek Eastern Wu’s aid in their war against Cao Cao, Lord Liu had said: _If we cannot protect the commoners, then what else do we have left?_ Kongming had had no answer. 

All he had were whispers from the wind: the peasants who had been left behind at Changban were set to work by new governors assigned by Cao Cao, and the harvest of the last year was plentiful enough for rice and grain to be sent down the Yangtze River to feed the hungry soldiers stationed at Chibi. All he had were a few murmurs, kept low in fear of inciting mutiny: many of the peasants they had brought away from Changban had made the choice to return, preferring to serve under Cao Cao’s governors than to follow Lord Liu in his wanderings, no matter how righteous the latter’s cause might be.

Lord Liu had always said: _We cannot give in to Cao Cao, for he is a usurper and a tyrant._ Lord Liu had always said: _We must protect the common people, for they have taken shelter behind our armies in fear of Cao Cao’s tyranny._ He had heard those words so often that they had knotted in his mind, but the straw was so thin that the breeze that carried those whispers and murmurs threatened to snap them and send the pieces scattering. 

“Eastern Wu fights against Cao Cao’s shadow that now overlays our borders,” the Viceroy said. He placed one hand on top of the windowsill, turning towards Kongming. “But what is the reason Shu Han wages war?”

Kongming smiled. “For justice and righteousness,” he said, meeting those dark eyes. “For the sake of a man born with royal blood, but whose hands have the calluses of a sandal-maker. For a man who rubbed those hands raw when he took up the sword and led an army.” Turning his wrist, he gestured at the estate around them, the castle of Chibi in which they now stood. “For a man who gave up his home for a life of wandering for the sake of giving those helpless shelter, so they might never need to fear again.” 

He paused. Words from long ago came back to him. Kongming’s shoulders shook as he continued: “For a man who saw a farmer’s son, and took him in as a brother, raising him far higher than the merit given to him by the station into which he was born.”

“Is that what he has done for you?” Viceroy Zhou asked, his head cocking to the side. “Though you have some talent for the skills required in the field, your hands are surely far too stained with ink to be a farmer’s son.” 

“I was born in a village,” Kongming admitted, “but you are right. I was born the child of a scholar. But you know the farmer’s son, nonetheless.”

“You mean General Zhang, then?” The Viceroy interrupted, clearly impatient. They might not share blood, Kongming thought, but he was like the Lady Sun in that way.

“No, Your Grace.” Watching the Viceroy for a moment, Kongming ducked his head. Laughter teased at the back of his throat, for surely his loyalty was not still tied to the words of a man who had long ago betrayed. Surely… “I knew the farmer’s son as Guan Yu, but,” he lifted his gaze just in time to catch the widening of those dark eyes, “‘Guan Yunchang’ is the name that is surely more familiar to you.”

“Cao Cao’s Empress?” Surprise turned the Viceroy’s words into a yelp.

“The Empress of Wei,” Kongming confirmed, nodding. “Once the Second General of Shu, Lord Liu and General Zhang’s sworn brother.” He tilted his head to the side. “Once, he was Guan Yu, wearing proudly the name given to him by his mother and father. Now…”

“Now he goes by Guan Yunchang, casting away the name given by his parents to be known solely by the name he chose himself,” the Viceroy picked up the thread immediately. “Now the Empress of Wei, even his surname is rarely spoken. I see now.”

Yes, Kongming thought. The Viceroy understood him instinctively, like he had guessed he would.

He was right about something else, too: the storm had moved from the skies to within him, for now his heart thundered so quickly and so hard that it nearly drowned out the Viceroy’s voice. Yet it could not be mere rain, for there were flames sparking into life low in his belly, licking at his nerves. His legs threatened to go weak, and when he shifted them to try to steady himself, his thighs rubbed together. 

Lightning and thunder. A storm unleashed within a sky that had always stayed barren of clouds _._ His fan’s handle nearly snapped into half from the sudden tightness of his grip. Kongming dragged air back into his lungs. 

“Precisely,” he said, averting his eyes so the Viceroy would not know the reaction he had caused. “Lord Liu had raised him to a position high enough that he could bring glory to his ancestors.”

“But Cao Cao had him relinquish that, and now Guan Yunchang is bound to naught but a traitorous usurper,” the Viceroy said. “I understand now the choice that he has made.” He smiled, lips thin and eyes sharp-bright. “The choice that you have, and your lord as well.”

The thunder was growing louder and louder, nearly enough to devour the sound of his heightened breathing. Kongming bit the inside of his cheek, and he tasted blood when the Viceroy reached out, closing his hand on Kongming’s white-clad sleeve. His skin was nearly hot enough to burn. “It is a good choice indeed.” 

Kongming stared at him. With effort, he managed to nod. “Thank you,” he whispered. He tried to make himself say more, to ensure that the Viceroy would not suspect. But the storm within him had shifted southwards, pooling between the bones of his hips. The Viceroy was an _Alpha_ , he reminded himself, near hysterical. If he were to smell what was happening, if Kongming allowed this to continue, then surely, surely…

“Forgive me, Mister Zhuge, I must retire for the night,” the Viceroy said. Kongming’s head jerked up, and realised that those dark eyes were no longer on him, but instead staring out of the window. “I came here to watch the storm, and have already lingered far too long. I must return to my wife and daughter.”

Those words should have been a sudden cold wind that would snuff out the flames and blow away the roiling storm within. Instead, a thought came unbidden: _there are few who are so devoted._ Viceroy Zhou had but one wife, the Lady Qiao, and but one daughter – not even an Alpha, destined to become naught but a wife – for whom he cared so much that his worries for her had caused him to walk blindly into a storm. Kongming swallowed. His palm, wrapped around the handle of his fan, threatened to bleed.

“Of course,” he said, and managed to sketch a bow with his fan pressed tight against his sternum. He kept his eyes lowered even as he straightened. “I will not keep you from your reasons for continuing to fight, Your Grace.”

A hand landed on his shoulder. Kongming nearly choked on air when fingers closed around the muscle and squeezed. “Sometimes I mourn that, one day, we must inevitably fight on opposing sides,” the Viceroy murmured. “For I know few with your brilliance, and fewer among them whose heart rings in the same tones as mine.”

Lowering his head again, Kongming choked out, “You overwhelm me with your praise.” He kept his body curled inward, forcing his eyes to the ground.

“If only you would not insist on such formality with me,” the Viceroy said, his voice echoing and echoing in Kongming’s ears. “Then perhaps we could stand together, side by side, like brothers. If you would, then perhaps the inevitable would cease to be so. Perhaps, with our joining, our lords can be convinced to fight together for the unification of the land.”

Kongming could not trust himself to speak. He waited, head spinning and toes curling in his shoes, for the hand on his shoulder to be withdrawn. Beads of blood gathered and smeared over the woven straw of his fan.

Eventually, Viceroy Zhou took one step back, then another, then he was turning on his heel. Kongming did not dare look up until he was at the end of the hallway and had turned out of his sight. Then he stumbled towards the window. The storm had ended when he needed the rain over his face. But there was still chill found in the heavy air. He breathed in long and deep, but all he found was the remnants of lightning that crackled to life once they reached his lungs, sparking the flames even higher.

He _ached_.

But he had to move. This was a castle filled with Alphas, all with sharp noses that could catch a hint of what should not and could not be. He pushed himself away from the window and forced his legs to work. Every single step he took sent another jolt up his spine from between his thighs. He nearly tripped down the stairs. Mud splashed upon his pale socks, and the hems of his white robes were stained, as he dragged himself over rain-sodden soil, crossing the path from the main encampment to the house he shared with Yueying.

His hands fumbled at his sleeves, trying to find the key to the lock when the door opened. His wife stared at him. Her hair was loose, the strands scattered over her face. Kongming met her wild gaze for a moment before he was pushing her inside. Her hands tangled in the scarlet collar of his robes as she dragged him forward at the same time. The wooden door rattled as she slammed him against it. Wood thundered and metal shrieked as the key skidded across the polished floor.

They fell upon each other. Yueying’s hands dug into his hair, pulling apart the knot that kept the strands tied away from his face. Kongming lifted his leg and wrapped it around her hip, heel digging into the small of her back as she rasped out a growl over his jaw. Their groins brushed against other, and a whine caught in Kongming’s throat when he could feel the rising hardness of her flush against the inside of his thigh.

“Will you,” Yueying started. Her teeth scraped over his throat, canine nicking the thin skin over his pulse. “Please, I don’t know how to ask— you have to understand, Kongming, you have to— I don’t know how to ask, and I know I shouldn’t, but please, Kongming, _please_ —”

They rarely touched each other; theirs was not a marriage of desire. They had never wanted each other in this way, had never _dared_ to even ask for this. Kongming closed his eyes, but Yueying was so close that he could smell the salt of her tears mixed in with the rain. He could smell something else, too, like the sunlight piercing through the thick canopy of a forest, alien and familiar both.

The last time Kongming had seen her tonight, she had had her head ducked down as she had shuffled along the wall, heading to Lord Liu’s side to inform him of the start of Concubine Qilan’s heat.

“Yueying,” he said. He cupped her face with one hand and leaned in until his forehead touched hers. When her eyes met his, he twisted his lips upwards even as he took her hand and pressed her palm between his legs. When her fingers curled, when she realised how _wet_ he was, enough to soak through both his smallclothes and robes, her bloodshot eyes went wide. 

“You don’t have to ask,” he finished. “Please don’t make me speak more of my shame.”

Her head dropped onto his shoulder. “ _Our_ shame, husband,” she said, words half-muffled in his sodden and stained robes. “Or do you not feel _this_ ,” she rocked her hips forward, her hard length making him hiccup as a whine tried to force itself out of his throat, “caused by one who is not you?”

Kongming buried his face into her hair. He should speak, should reassure her, but her fingers were digging deeper into him, pressing the rough cotton of his smallclothes _inside_ him. All that escaped was a gasp as his entire body jerked. Behind him, the door creaked, the sounds ringing like an announcement of his impiety.

“Come with me,” Yueying said. Her nails scraped over his thighs as her hand pulled away. Kongming barely managed to not stumble over his own shoes as he followed her. The wet slaps of his socks on the floor made him shudder, for it was too much like— like—

What kind of a fool was he, to desire something which he could not even describe? What kind of a scholar was he, to cling so hard to a desire which he dared not name?

As they crossed the threshold of their bedroom, Yueying let him go. Kongming tried to turn, but she forced his head to point forward before wrapping herself around him. “Let me do this,” she said, words slurred now. She found the ties of his robes easily, peeling the wet cloth away from his skin. He fixed his gaze upon the wall ahead.

His breath hitched in time with every article of clothing that fell to the floor. His throat made a high-pitched, needy _noise_ that he never thought it capable of.

A thumb stroked over the edge of his smallclothes, so close to his cock that Kongming shuddered hard, nearly wrenching himself free. But the arm around his waist held on tight, fingers digging into the soft flesh of his side, and all Kongming could do was to release a low, sobbing moan as one finger slipped beneath the cloth to push inside him.

He should not— he _should not_ — The body behind his own was so familiar to him that he might know it better than his own. But the finger within was strange, scraping over skin that had always been untouched, and it was easy, so easy, to allow that cloak of desire to drape over him. To allow his mind to drift, to sink, to—

The Viceroy was almost the same size as he was, barely taller, barely broader, despite being an Alpha. Fingers well-used to a sword, but that were also familiar with the strings of a zither. Kongming’s lips moved, but no sound escaped. A title would sound strange right now, especially when callused hands were already tugging his smallclothes away from his skin so slowly that it was a tease. A title would not fit those teeth closing, light, over the curve of his shoulder. 

“Gongjin.” The Viceroy’s courtesy name slipped from his tongue so easily. Hadn’t he asked for less formality? “Gongjin, please.”

Breath skittered quick over his skin. “ _Thank you,_ ” Yueying murmured. Kongming knew it was his wife who was behind him, but he knew, too, that it was Gongjin. It was easy to know both, to hold both in his hands; he had such long years of practice in knowing the truths of things that contradicted. He let himself arch, back curving towards Gongjin’s, as two fingers slipped inside him, starting to thrust slow and steady.

“Qilan,” Yueying whispered into his ear. “You’re doing so well for me.” Lips closed over his earlobe, lightly sucking. Gongjin was so careful with him. “Let me hear you, please.” 

Those fingers inside _twisted_ , and Kongming was throwing his head back, neck pressed against the broad shoulder supporting him as he cried out, loud and sharp. There was so much slick dripping from him, wetting his thighs and surely slipping down the back of Gongjin’s hand, over those well-formed knuckles to make the dark golden skin glow.

His smallclothes dropped to the ground, a strip lying over his foot. Gongjin nudged it away before a hand splayed over the small of his back. “Lie on the bed, Qilan,” Yueying murmured, and, _oh_ , her voice was tremulous with so much need. Gongjin needed him so much, wanted him so much, and what could Kongming do but obey?

Opening his eyes, he kept his gaze forward as he walked. He bent his knees when he reached the bed, and let his eyes fall shut again as he laid on his back. The wood of the bed creaked when Gongjin climbed up next to him. For a moment, Kongming was reminded of storms and breaking ships, of wood soaked with salt and shattered by powder fire. Then there were fingers sliding gently over his ankles, urging his legs to spread even wider. Hands tucked folded cloth beneath his hips, helping him lift them up. Breath over his lips.

Gongjin kissed him. Lips pressing over his, teeth closing over his lower lip. Kongming opened his mouth, and he whined as a tongue licked over his teeth. Slow, deliberate, and so _gentle._ “Look at you,” Yueying whispered. Knuckles brushed over his cheeks, Gongjin following the curve of his cheekbones. “You’re so beautiful like this, Qilan. That flush covering your pale skin… prettier than any sunrise.” Lips over his own again, slow-sliding this time. 

As if he was precious.

Kongming tried to cover his face, to hide that flush, for surely it was too much. But Gongjin’s fingers pulled his way. Teeth grazed over his knuckles, over his wrist. “The first time I saw you, you were standing with your parents,” she said. Her voice was so soft, and every word seemed a prayer, a gesture of worship. “You were blushing, trying to not wring your hands out of embarrassment as they bragged that you were the most beautiful in the village.” 

A tongue laved over his palm, following his life line, and Kongming shuddered hard as he swallowed back a sob. “They were wrong; you are more than that. You were the most beautiful person I had ever seen. You weren’t even looking at me, and I could not see your eyes. All I saw were your hands, yet I knew that to be true. Now that I have seen your eyes, now that I _know_ you… that is still the truth.” Hands settled his own over strong shoulders. Kongming gripped tight just as Gongjin held his hips tightly enough to bruise.

As if he was so desired that Gongjin feared that he would disappear the moment he loosened his grip.

The hitch of a breath over his hair. Kongming wrapped his legs around a slim, strong waist, resting his heels on the small of his back. Gongjin was strong enough to bear his weight, he knew, more than strong enough. “I have wanted you for so long,” Yueying said. Hands traced the lines of Kongming’s sides, Gongjin trying to memorise his form. “And now you are here, giving yourself to me so utterly…” Fingers once more closing around his hips. Kongming took a deep breath, and held it.

Gongjin pushed inside him with a thrust so swift and sudden that Kongming cried out, throwing his head back as he shuddered. It _burned_ despite the slick, his body so unused to this, but he trusted Gongjin, knew his capacity for care and devotion. “It’s alright, it’s alright,” Yueying muttered. Gongjin’s callused thumb over his cheek, stroking one then the other, wiping away the tears. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Kongming said, finding his voice suddenly. He arched his back, and let slip a moan as Gongjin’s cock nudged even deeper inside. “It feels good. Gongjin, Gongjin, it feels so right when you’re inside me.” His breath hitched. 

“Shh.” A kiss pressed into his hair. Gongjin’s gentleness was tearing his heart and lungs into pieces, shattering his breathing. “That’s what I’ve wanted to hear for so long, Qilan. That’s what I’ve always dreamed of hearing.” A breath, uneven, unsteady. Gongjin was always so composed, yet his need for Kongming had driven him to this. “Hold on to me.”

Tightening his legs, Kongming nodded. But he still couldn’t help but gasp when Gongjin started to move, started to take him, fuck him, so hard and so fast. As if Gongjin trusted his strength and resilience – as if he knew Kongming could take whatever it was that he could give

The thoughts filled the hollow that had ached within him for so long. As Gongjin’s cock stretched him and took him, the sounds of their joining filled the room, wet and obscene. Kongming was sobbing before he knew it, tears streaking down the sides of his eyes to soak into the creaking bamboo mats beneath. “Please, please,” he begged, not even knowing what he needed but knowing that Gongjin would give it to him, because Gongjin saw him and desired him and _wanted_ him. 

“Let me give you what you need.” Harsh pants ghosted over his lips. A shaking hand stroked over his loose hair. Salt slipped into his mouth. “Qilan, Qilan. Let me fulfil your desires. Let me…” A wrenching sob that dragged the same from Kongming’s own lungs. He wrapped his arms tight around Gongjin’s broad shoulders, bracketing Gongjin’s body with his own frame, trying to hold on. 

Heat built and built within him. The storm, roiling and roiling. Gongjin pushed his fingers inside him, stretching him even further, and Kongming twisted his body up with a sharp cry as they slipped out. Then wet fingers scraped over his sides, scratching and bruising him as Gongjin drew back and slammed deep inside, shoving his knot straight into Kongming’s hole, stretching him even wider, making his body fit around his.

Kongming shouted. His hands fell to the bamboo, scrabbling at the slats. He was close, so close, then Gongjin’s calluses scraped over his cock, a courtesy so sweet that Kongming gave a hiccupping sob that snatched breath from his lungs as he came. His cock swelled, sticky liquid landing on his skin even as his insides clenched tight over Gongjin’s knot, dragging him further inside even as he pulsed.

Falling back into the bed, Kongming tried to breathe. This time, when he dragged one arm up to cover his face, Gongjin didn’t stop him. Gongjin stayed bent over him instead, face buried in the tangled strands of his hair—

But it wasn’t Gongjin. It had never been the Viceroy, because that could and should not be. Kongming kept his eyes closed, but he knew that his fingers were counting the knobs of Yueying’s spine, not the Viceroy’s. It had always been Yueying. Just like he had always been Kongming, and never Qilan.

“Do you think it will take?” Yueying asked, her voice no louder than a murmur. Even without Kongming needing to say a word, she knew the illusion had been broken. They had always been this way, with each other.

Letting out a breath, Kongming stared at the ceiling. He imagined what would happen if it did, if Kongming carried the child instead of Yueying, if the world was given irrefutable proof of who should have been the husband, and who should have been the wife. He knew without needing to think the consequences: all that they had both built would fall through their hands, shattering into innumerable pieces that could never be recovered, much less repaired. The paths they had always taken would end suddenly in front of them, and they could never again walk down them.

He could not fully imagine it. But even the half-formed, mist-made images tempted him.

Looking down, Kongming curled his fingers, and brushed his knuckles over Yueying’s cheek. “You know that it won’t,” he said, voice soft. Even if he was in heat and she in rut… even if they were drawn to each other in that way… There was a reason why, among betas, the women were more often wives, and the men more often husbands. 

(When he had been captured, Zhang Liao had asked the Viceroy: “ _Would you say your talents were granted by the blood in your veins, or the tutors who once knelt at your feet?_ ” Now Kongming could not help by wonder: _Were those proclivities built within our parents-given bodies, or were they shaped by belief?_

He had no answer. He would not allow himself to search for one.)

Yueying’s eyes had darkened. But before she could speak, they both heard it: crackling ripples in the air, coming from far away, like captured thunder struggling against a thick ceramic vase. Neither of them needed to get out of bed to know the sound; they had heard it enough these past months. 

Now that the storm was over, Cao Cao had once again sent up fireworks to celebrate his victory. While their enemies were edging on the verge of starving, Wei was likely having another feast.

“We are both terribly pathetic, aren’t we?” Yueying asked. Her smile was mirthless and bitter; it mirrored his own. She turned her head away.

Closing his hands around her elbows, Kongming helped to steady her as they shifted together until they were lying on their sides. Her knot shifted inside him, making him bite back a gasp, but, like this, they were far more comfortable. His leg swung over her hip, and she sighed again before she leaned her forehead against his shoulder. Kongming closed his eyes when he could feel the mixture of his slick and her come sliding over the crease of his thigh.

“You admitted it before I did, didn’t you?” Kongming asked in return. “We have been fighting a losing battle from the beginning.”

Not simply Shu and Eastern Wu against Wei. But the two of them against the enemy that surrounded them so entirely that its influence had seeped deep into their bones. An enemy that wove threads around them so heavy and thick that any attempts at escape risked tearing themselves apart.

Yueying did not say a word. She did not need to: her fingers, brushing over the curve of his ear so gently, and her eyes, so full of sorrow and pity, spoke with perfect eloquence. Kongming closed his eyes, and listened to the celebration of his lord’s impending defeat.

*

It did not take.

Six weeks later, Cao Cao won a decisive battle that crushed the majority of the combined Shu-Wu navy. Despite the marriages of his sister and niece to prominent men of Wu, Marquis Sun Quan withdrew from the alliance, though he allowed Jingzhou to remain in Shu hands. Viceroy Zhou Yu personally escorted the remnants of the Shu army from Chibi. 

Lord Liu set up the Kingdom of Shu Han in Jingzhou. Wei followed, and hounded Shu until all Lord Liu had left was the city of Weiling in the south of the province. A week into the siege, General Zhao sent his young wife back to her uncle, murmuring quietly to Kongming that she did not deserve to be dragged down with them when she had been used as a mere pawn. Kongming did not ask if General Zhao had asked his wife if she wanted to leave him. He did not want to know.

Now, winter approached and Kongming was seated atop the parapet of the emptying city and thought, _Perhaps this war was lost the moment Wei’s omega Empress led the charge to save its beta Chancellor._ No, that was wrong; that was avoidance. The war had been lost the moment an omega chose to give up his family-given name as a sworn brother to be an Empress with a broken, self-granted moniker.

A common soldier came to retrieve him. That was right; that was all he deserved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Qu Yuan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qu_Yuan) is a poet who lived at around 300BC; his story is the origin of the [Dragon Boat Festival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Boat_Festival). 
> 
> Also, Kongming and Yueying’s sex scene is, quite possibly, the healthiest heterosexual sex scene I have ever written. Which, quite frankly, says a lot about me.


	7. Epilogue: 勤有功, “diligence has its rewards”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings: _Major character deaths_**. Like I have warned in the beginning of the fic, _everyone who doesn’t appear in the first scene of the prologue dies._ This is a foregone conclusion. Also, descriptions of blood and gore because, uh, capital punishment in ancient China where clean ways of dying aren’t a priority.

_The tenth year of the Cao Dynasty, late winter_  
_Xu, the Kingdom of Wei_

The season was too late for there to be snow on the ground, but white still covered the clearing. White, the colour of death; white, the colour of the heavy cotton robes that Wei had given the highest-ranked of Shu; white robes with sleeves long enough to cover their wrists, and the hems dragging along the bare, wet soil. 

It had stormed the previous night. The skies themselves had raged, sending howling gales that rattled wooden doors and threatened to tear paper into pieces. Trees had bent in the wind, bowing even further from the downpour that had come upon them; rains so heavy that they threatened to wash away the shoots struggling through the cold, hard ground. Then, as the sun started to rise, the winds had picked up even further, nearly tearing tiles off rooftops as they ripped the storm into pieces and swept the pieces away.

Yueying turned her eyes upwards. Overhead, the clouds were soft and white, gentler-looking than the first blossoms of cotton flowers at the beginning of summer. The air was so still that she could hear the quiet breathing of all those who were standing with her on this raised dais that seemed akin to a stage. 

An irony, or a rejection of history? Long had it been that executions had served as entertainment, the only blood-sport that commoners could partake in, even as mere audience. Or, perhaps, the Emperor of Wei simply wished to enjoy that he sat higher than those he chose to execute, so he could remind them of their place in life as he sent them to their death. Neither seemed likely options: the wrists of the officers of Shu were left unbound, and the Empress of Wei was present, seated on the ornate throne next to his husband’s much plainer one.

Wood creaked, loud in the heavy silence. Yueying pushed her thoughts away, turning her attention back to the execution platform. The planks had been changed since the storm last night; now they gleamed with polish in the soft morning sun. Cleanliness and purity that matched the white of Lord Liu’s robes which remained brilliant and shining as he stepped through the soft mud.

Only his straw sandals were stained. 

In front of the block upon which he would rest his head, Lord Liu knelt without a sound. Yueying watched him, and could no longer see the callous cruelty of an Alpha who barely acknowledged the existence of his wives and concubine. There was a peace within him, a tranquil resignation to his fate that could almost be mistaken for the benevolence for which he was so famed. 

Was this the lord that Kongming had served as fervently and loyally throughout these years? Was this the man that Kongming would gladly follow into death, no matter how futile it seemed? Yueying still did not know. Maybe it was only now that she had truly seen him. Maybe it was that she had seen far too much of him to believe.

Lord Liu picked up the cup of wine in front of him. He turned away from the dais, towards the line of his followers awaiting their own deaths. When he touched his laden hand to his forehead in salute, General Zhang’s face scrunched up as he let out a quiet sob. General Zhao’s knuckles, resting between his knees, paled to the colour of his robes. Kongming lowered his eyes.

“This nobody,” Lord Liu said, his gaze shifting back to the dais and seeking the Empress’s immediately, “thanks his second brother, the Empress of Wei, for this drink.” He touched the cup to his lips, tossing it back.

“This lowly one knows it is far too late to beg for forgiveness,” he continued after swallowing. “He knows, too, that mere words are far too little, and his hands are too stiff to bring about any actions that might serve as recompense.” He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “But this nobody wishes his second brother to know that his heart is gladdened that he lives, for it means he has family who have been left behind.” He took a deep breath. “But this nobody offers yet another apology, for he never wished to cause his second brother so much grief.”

Porcelain clicked against wood as Lord Liu set the cup down. Yueying slid her eyes to the side, and saw that the Empress of Wei was sitting still and unmoving upon his throne. Lord Liu valued his brothers as arms, and his wives and children as sleeves. Now, at his moment of death, he regretted his actions against his brother. Yueying wondered if he understood that his brother was a wife, too; that the slight swell of the Empress’s abdomen was the sign of the children he had recently borne. Did Lord Liu’s regret extend to his treatment of his own wives and children, or had the Empress simply become an exception?

Lowering his eyes, Lord Liu laid his head upon the block. He folded his hands behind his back. “I’m ready,” he said, voice clear. He closed his eyes.

He offered no words for his wives and concubine; none for Lady Sun, who sat still and silent at the end of the line beside Kongming

As the waiting executioner let fall his broadsword, Yueying glanced to her other side. Qilan was standing straight, her hands loose at her side. When General Zhang let out a long, low sound, barely even human, Qilan did not move. Her chest rose and fell shallowly. The crimson blood splashing upon the new-polished wood was reflected in her dark, wide eyes.

Soldiers climbed up the execution platform, their booted feet loud on the wood. They avoided the pooling blood, and their hands were gentle as they picked up Lord Liu’s corpse and his head. As they left, two more approached the platform.

“Do not wipe the wood clean.” General Zhang’s voice, famed for its volume and ferocity, was now naught more than a quiet rasp. Still, it echoed. “Let me kneel in my brother’s blood as I follow him.”

He stood without waiting for his escort. Wei’s soldiers bowed their heads and stepped out of the way as he strode towards the platform with his hands splayed by his sides and his spine stiff. His wild hair had been dulled by the months in prison, but a sudden gust of wind whipped up the strands, blowing them into his face. The touch of his knees onto the wood was like the crack of thunder across the blue skies. Crimson immediately crawled and spread over the colourless expanse of his robes. 

Yueying thought of Lady Li, so young when Yueying met her but already three years married. She remembered Lady Li’s long-lasting resentment at the fortune she perceived Yueying to own. She recalled Lady Li’s laughter at the sight of General Zhang’s ferocity. 

The blood that soaked General Zhang now did not belong to Lady Li. That was right; that was appropriate: he had not only spilled her blood, after all, but had torn apart her very self until there was nothing left.

General Zhang’s hands did not shake as he waved away the soldier who had come to pour his wine for him. “All warriors know to pour their own wine,” he said. Colourless liquid splashed upon the wood, diluting the blood still left on the ground. He swiped his fingers over the mixture before splaying them over his face, smearing pale red over his beard and moustache in a swift, sudden gesture that made the Empress of Wei stiffen, his knuckles paling even further around the arm of his throne.

“I haven’t the poetry of my eldest brother,” he said. “Neither have I the grace of my second brother.” He placed the wine jug back onto the platform and jutted out his chin. His eyes caught those of the Empress of Wei, and he smiled. “But I have a long memory, and my honour comes from fulfilling my promises.”

Lifting the cup, he jerked up his chin. “Once, er-ge, I promised that I will teach your children the ways of a warrior, including how one should pour and drink his wine.” His grin was wide, nearly irrepressible. Yueying clenched her fist by her side. “Now I won’t be able to fulfil that promise, er-ge, and for that I am sorry. But I am reassured, still, because,” he tossed back the alcohol, swallowing hard enough for his throat to bob, “you are a warrior great enough that your children will need no one else’s teachings.”

This time, porcelain cracked as it was slammed against wood. General Zhang let out a sharp breath, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. He rested his head on the block in a manner that screamed satisfaction. “Come on now,” he said, closing his eyes. “Don’t make my brother wait too long for me.”

For the second time in this sun-bright morning, the executioner’s blade fell. This time, Yueying did not look away. Within the blood that flowed so quickly and thickly from General Zhang’s severed neck, she could see the shadow of Lady Li. She, like Lady Mi and Lord Liu’s young sons, would be given poison early tomorrow morning.

Perhaps Yueying could visit them tonight. If they allowed her into the house that had served as their prison in Xu, Yueying would craft lies about the last words that their husbands had given to them. Let her add dishonesty to her long list of iniquities: she would not have them die knowing that they had been so easily forgotten and discarded. Let her lie so that they could believe that they had been remembered, if only for the briefest moment, by the husbands they had given their lives to serve.

The Alphas had the young man bent over a small desk in the corner with his brush moving swiftly over paper – Lord Cao’s new scribe, named Sima Yi. The wives would have only Yueying, and the little she could give them. 

On the platform, the soldiers had finished carrying General Zhang’s body away, laying it alongside Lord Liu’s. Their steady hands covered the gruesome sight with one of the flags of Shu that had been recovered from Jingzhou. Their every movement was punctuated by the half-choked, broken sobs that came from the Empress of Wei. The sounds echoed and echoed in the clearing; in Yueying’s ears.

Her own eyes were dry. 

General Zhao stood. He looked strange without his usual armour, smaller somehow when dressed only in cotton. The steps he took up to the platform seemed weak without the accompanying click of metal plates shifting together, without the soft sweeps of his thick cape as it danced around his ankles. 

The General knelt and took the filled cup of wine from the soldier who poured it for him. He said: “Kongming.”

Yueying witnessed the shudder that went through her husband’s body at the sound of his courtesy name; a name that, she knew, General Zhao had never once used. She watched as Kongming’s eyes widened and his hands started to claw at his wrists when he noticed that General Zhao’s cup was raised in his direction. 

“I have let you down,” General Zhao said. “If I have been braver…”

Kongming had never tripped into heat for this Alpha’s sake, Yueying knew. The one time he had, it had been Viceroy Zhou Yu’s sake; for the desire of an Alpha he barely knew and whom he had wanted because he knew he couldn’t have him. Yueying had never allowed herself to wonder why, but now, looking at the two of them, she had the answer, and she wanted to laugh.

Even at the moment of death, General Zhao looked at Kongming and still could not accept him as his equal. Even in guilt, General Zhao could not look at Kongming’s hands and judge them strong enough to carry the same burden, and instead carried it all upon his own shoulders. Kongming, who had always claimed Yueying was his equal but had never treated her as such, had always wanted the same thing as she did. Like her, he had recognised that he would never have it.

“I have let myself down,” she heard her husband correct General Zhao. “We both have.” Kongming pressed his fingers to his mouth before he offered them in General Zhao’s direction. “Do not spend your last moments grieving for my sake.” His voice dropped even further, but the breeze still carried the soft whisper to Yueying’s ears:

“Zilong.”

A facsimile of a kiss. The shape of their lips and the timbre of their voices, shaped around each other’s courtesy names. Yueying bit her own lip, pushing away the encroaching tears with the pain. Later, she would weep for them. Now she had to look, she had to remember, for she would be one of the last two left.

General Zhao drew out a pouch from his sleeves. Black silk, with the embroidery of his name stitched in a red that shimmered like blood. Yueying swallowed back a gasp, for she recognised that pouch. She had seen it on Kongming’s desk, once, so long ago; had seen the needle-thin wounds on his fingertips as he had painstakingly embroidered the name into the silk.

“Let me be buried with this,” General Zhao was saying. Please, do not take it from my body.”

General Zhao had carried Kongming’s gift to him for ten years. Now he tucked it into his collar, resting it beside his heart. Yueying wanted to cry out at his foolishness; wanted to run down to the execution platform and shake him for causing her husband so much pain. For Kongming’s eyes were closed, and the tight clench of his hands could not hide their trembling. Tiny beads of blood were dripping from his wrists to soak into the soil.

For the third time of the morning, the executioner’s blade fell. Kongming lurched forward, nearly falling from his seat.

“ _Zilong!_ ”

A long, shuddering cry; one that seemed ripped out from Kongming’s very heart. Yueying’s eyes burned. She blinked her tears away. She breathed through her teeth. Slowly, she unclenched the hands held at her sides. There was blood smeared all over her palms. 

Yet she was selfish, for she still thought: _At least, husband, you have the fortune of being remembered_.

Lady Sun stood. Though she had sat further down the line from Kongming, she would go first. The Emperor of Wei had told Yueying that Kongming had wanted to be the last to die, so he might embody Shu Han itself through witnessing their deaths. A fitting role, Kongming had certainly thought, to the bound books of history that he had written and left in Yueying’s safekeeping days ago.

After the Emperor had finished speaking, Yueying had requested to be present at these executions. If Kongming was to witness the death of Shu and the birth of a new age, then Yueying would watch his death in turn. It was the least she could do.

But not yet. Now, Lady Sun was taking that final step up to the execution platform. Her hands were folded together in front of her, and her head was held up high. She stopped in front of the executioner’s block, her eyes flickering down to take in the wood that had been so clean but was now irreparably stained, before she faced fully the stage.

“I know that you have honoured me to allow me to die with the lords and warriors of Wei,” she said. Unlike the men, she did not speak softly; her voice was clear and strident like the thunder of war drums that rang our during a battle. “I thank you for it, but I have one request, if you will allow it.” She lowered her head, bowing like a warrior. 

“Will you allow me to borrow a blade for my throat?”

Whispers did not sweep through the clearing. No one started. Soldiers turned their heads towards the raised platform, looking at their Emperor and Empress. Neither of them moved. The young scribe’s brush was frozen above his paper. Yueying watched Lady Sun.

During the prolonged war at Chibi, Kongming had sent the Lady Sun out to spy upon the Emperor of Wei’s camp on the opposite side of the Yangtze. Was that act of valour the reason why she was allowed to die among the generals and the lord here in the sunlight, instead of in the darkness like the other wives and the children? Or was it because she was a close relation of the Marquis of Wu, and her public death would be useful to send as a signal for the last obstacle to the Wei Emperor’s unification of all under heaven?

Or, perhaps, this was due to Lady Sun’s own request. She, the daughter of a warlord and sister to a Marquis, would surely see herself above the other wives. Perhaps here, in her death, she wished to keep herself apart from them, and align instead with the husbands, the Alphas. The men.

“Er-ge.”

Qilan’s arm brushed hers as she stepped forward. With wide eyes, Yueying watched as the younger woman fell to one knee, her hair shielding her face from sight as she said, “Will you allow this slave to acquiesce to Lady Sun’s request?”

The Empress of Wei did not speak for long moments. His knuckles were very pale upon the dark wood of the throne, on his plain black robes. “Sao-zi,” he greeted in return, his voice barely more than a shuddering sigh. “You have brought the blade with you this morning?”

“I carry it with me always,” Qilan said, her head still lowered. “It will do me a great honour if you will allow me to lend that blade to,” her breath hitched, “to the Lady who has been, to me, like an elder sister.”

Lady Sun had barely deigned to speak to Qilan during the years she had spent as Lord Liu’s wife. Yueying’s heart ached enough for it to become difficult for her to keep her hands by her sides.

Closing his eyes, the Empress of Wei nodded. “Of course,” he whispered.

“Your Majesty,” Qilan started, turning. But the Emperor immediately shook his head, raising a hand. 

“It was Yunchang’s blade, and now it is yours,” the Alpha said, his voice level. “The only objection I have is that the execution will be unorthodox, but I am one who has made his reputation upon the sacrileges of the precepts he has performed.” He smiled. There was neither mirth nor joy in his eyes. “Go ahead, handmaiden of my Empress. Give your sister the weapon that befits her duty and her station.”

Qilan stood. Walking backwards, she stepped off the stage, and headed towards Lady Sun, who was staring at her with wide eyes. Did Lady Sun recognise the kindness that she had received in return for the cruelties she had dealt? Did she realise that Qilan had no need to fall to her knees like this, or lower her head when presenting the knife to her?

Though Yueying had never once seen it, had never asked to see it, she recognised the blade immediately: short, with a plain hilt, without any decoration except for a sigil at the pommel; metal moulded to form 關, the surname of the Empress of Wei himself. The talisman that Qilan had kept to herself, pressed close to her heart, as a reminder of hope that kept her breaths strong and her head held high during the years of suffering she had endured.

Lady Sun let out a breath that rattled in the still air. “Thank you, Qilan,” she whispered. Slowly, she lowered herself to one knee. “Thank you, little sister.”

Qilan placed her hands on her hips and bent her knees with her head lowered. Then she turned, and stepped down from the stage. Lady Sun’s eyes did not leave her form as her other leg folded and she settled to sit on her calves. 

“Don’t turn around,” Lady Sun said. Qilan stopped. The scrape of metal against metal rang out sharply through the air. Holding the blade aloft, the Lady lifted her eyes and made a bow. “I thank the Emperor and Empress of Wei,” she said, voice sharp and clear, “for their kindness in allowing my request to be fulfilled. I thank my little sister once again, for the honour she had granted me in lending this blade.”

Was this her last attempt at compassion, Yueying wondered, that Lady Sun did not wish for Qilan to witness her death? Yueying did not know. She kept her eyes open, witnessing for Qilan’s sake as Lady Sun drew the knife across her throat in one swift, sudden move. She watched as Lady Sun’s hand fell back down to her side, her wrist thudding against her knee. 

The blade clattered across the wooden platform. The scarlet smeared on silver gleamed and glittered like rubies under the bright sun.

“Sima Yi,” the Emperor of Wei said. Out of the corner of her eye, Yueying watched as, the young scribe’s head jerked up. “Note Lady Sun’s name in the records, and write that she died like a warrior, taking her own life instead of allowing it to be taken by anyone else.” 

Fixing her gaze back on Lady Sun, Yueying noted that she might have been on her knees with her chin touching her chest, but her back had remained straight. Her eyes were wide open. 

“Note, too,” the Emperor of Wei continued, “that even in death, she does not admit defeat.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the scribe agreed quietly. He dipped his brush into the ink, and started to write. The quiet slide of the bristles over thin paper punctuated the steps of the soldiers as they ascended the platform to carry Lady Sun’s body away.

One of them – Xiahou Hui, Yueying recognised; the woman who would be her commanding officer once she had learned enough of the sword to be useful – picked up the blade and its sheath carefully. Colonel Xiahou carried them with both hands as she approached Qilan

Qilan, frozen on the spot since she had been ordered to do so by her elder sister, finally moved. She cleaned the blade with her sleeve, smearing spots of bright-brilliant red over the plain, dull robes she wore. She slipped it back into it hilt. When she tucked the weapon back into her sleeves, red stained the cloth even further. Her footsteps made no sound as she headed back up the steps to the stage. 

Yueying wanted to reach out to her, to touch her, but Qilan shook her head minutely just once. Her gaze returned to the execution platform, so Yueying’s followed, too.

Kongming had stood. His hands were folded into his sleeves as he walked, each step slow and deliberate. Waiting, Yueying knew, for the soldiers to finish cleaning the wooden boards. As he knelt in front of the block, he picked up Lady Sun’s untouched wine. He poured it out. Then he knelt, resting his hands on his lap, and waited.

After a moment, the Emperor of Wei started to chuckle. He waved a hand, and one of the soldiers hurried forward. Kongming received a new cup with wine that was poured entirely for him. As Yueying watched, eyes unblinking, Kongming waited until he was alone on the platform with his silent executioner before he moved.

“The Chief Strategist of Shu,” Kongming said, his voice crisp and clear and his fingers around his cup steady, “thanks the Emperor of Wu for this wine.”

In life, Kongming had stuck closely to precepts and traditions, letting them close around him into a cage that had snapped whatever wings he might have owned into pieces along with his bones. Now, near death, he allowed them to dictate his actions again, throwing back the wine with one gulp and setting the cup back down on the wooden floor. Now, Yueying predicted, he would lay his head upon the block.

But Kongming turned to her instead. His dark eyes met hers. He raised one hand, placing it on his heart, and he lowered his head. A greeting among equals. An unspoken gratitude. Yueying gasped despite herself, and she bunched the cloth of her collar in her fist as she dug her knuckles into her ribs.

Here, at this very last moment, when nothing else could be done… Kongming turned his head from the path he had chosen, and finally acknowledged that there were others he could have taken. He was looking at her, and the road she had chosen that would lead her far, far away from him and everything he had ever believed in. 

_Too late, too late_. Yueying jerked her head downwards. She kept her eyes open, witnessing as Kongming laid his head down on the block. She saw in his eyes the same strange peace as that in Lord Liu’s as the Emperor of Wei raised his own cup in saluting tribute. She watched as he sighed, all tension going out of his shoulders, as he closed his eyes, and remembered the bound books he had given her; that, she knew, the Emperor of Wei would order to be copied and carefully stored once she had finished reading them.

The executioner’s blade rose. It caught the morning sunlight, the curve of it gleaming like a crescent moon on a cloudless night. 

It fell.

Kongming had always liked to wear white. But the scarlet strip around his collar had been so different from the stark crimson that was now splattered his robes. Thin lines, like the shadows of the cage he had put around himself had been made real. But so bright, so bright.

The clearing was silent. A moment of mourning for the death of Shu, for though the wives still lived, their hands were too small to ever hold the embodiment of a kingdom. Yueying tipped her head back. 

It was a beautiful day. But she could no longer see the skies. There was only a dulled mess of blue, for tears had filled her eyes, spilling down her cheeks to soak into the collar of her robe.

***

_The tenth year of the Cao Dynasty, early winter_  
_Xu, the Kingdom of Wei_

“When my armies closed in on Liu Bei in Weiling, my strategists calculated that Shu Han would only last for two weeks at most, given the resources of food and water left for them.” As Lord Cao picked up one of the white stones from its bowl, the thin winter sunlight coming from the window slats gave a bright gleam to the calluses at the back of his knuckles. “Yet Liu Bei managed to last for two months.” The _clack_ of stone on wood echoed loud in the small room.

“There are many who would claim that it is because of Chief Strategist Zhuge Liang’s plans that Shu Han managed to hold us off for so long,” the Alpha continued. “But even the greatest plans would fail if they needed to be carried out by hungry men.” Folding his hands atop of the small table – the top of which was carved out of grey, unpolished stone – his gaze rested on Yueying’s face, the weight of it nearly enough to choke.

“It was you who proved my strategists wrong,” Lord Cao said. A surely ridiculous proclamation, but one delivered like it was a matter of fact. “Through your efforts in rationing food and water, through your plans of gathering foodstuffs from the forests surrounding Weiling, Shu Han managed to last six weeks more than planned.” His lips curved up into a mirthless smile, made darker by the shadows gathering within in dark, piercing eyes. “It was you who nearly brought my army to ruin.”

Lord Cao, Yueying noted silently, had a gift for making praise sound as dangerous as a threat. Lowering her eyes, she murmured, “My lord praises this lowly one far too highly.” She turned away from his gaze, scanning the room. But there was nothing new in this small hut that she had been imprisoned in since she had been delivered to Xuchang – unlike Kongming, the Empress of Wei had not gifted her with a _penjing_.

“Your humility does not befit your abilities,” Lord Cao said, mirth creeping into his voice, “and I am not here for pleasantries.” When he waved his hand towards the wooden board, Yueying obligingly picked up a piece of black stone. “I am here to indulge my curiosity, Lady Huang: Liu Bei is a man famed for stating that wives and children were worth little more than sleeves in his eyes. How did you manage to convince him to allow you to take charge of the supplies?”

Slowly, Yueying placed the black stone one square of the board. The wooden surface was almost entirely overrun by white, but Lord Cao still had quite a few moves to go before he could win against her. Despite the lack of time to practice within the last few years, Yueying still owned some skill in _weiqi_.

“I did not convince him,” she answered honestly. What use was there in lying, after all? Shu Han had fallen, and the date of death of its lords, generals, strategists, and wives was fast approaching. “I simply did what had to be done.”

It had not been difficult: Lord Liu, Generals Zhang and Zhao, Kongming, and all of the other leaders of Shu had been so busy calculating their weapons and formulating and reformulating their plans of defence and attack that they had forgotten the most basic need of all living beings. Yueying, who knew all too well from Chibi that the food of wives and foot soldiers would be the first taken away in times of shortage, could not bear to remain inactive.

A wife’s duty was to care for the matters within a home. Even if that home had been expanded to an entire city, she was still fulfilling the necessary duties of her role. She was still, technically, not overstepping her boundaries.

“For the sake of an arrogant Alpha who would not even acknowledge your existence, much less your deeds?” Lord Cao asked. He picked up his cup of tea, and sipped at it. His eyes never once left Yueying’s.

“Years ago, my husband chose to serve Lord Liu, and I agreed then to obey his choice.” Yueying ran fingertip over the rim of her own teacup. “But, Lord Cao, it was not for Lord Liu’s sake that I turned arrogant, stepping out the role that I was made to play.” Lifting her eyes, she finally met Lord Cao’s gaze through the veil of her hair. “My efforts were for those I wished to save.”

“Those you wished to save,” Lord Cao repeated. “You did not have faith in Liu Bei’s victory?”

Despite the precarious position she was in – her life, after all, was literally in this Alpha’s hand – Yueying laughed, so loud and harsh that it was almost a cackle. “There is a great gulf of difference between obedience in servitude, my lord, and blind following.” She cocked her head to the side. “Or do you choose only those who cannot tell the difference between the two to follow you?”

Too late: only when the words had slipped out of Yueying’s lips did she realise just how rude and presumptuous they were. She ducked her head, hiding her hands into her sleeves as she braced herself for the incoming blow.

But Lord Cao did not rise from his feet. He did not move at all except for the upward twitch to the side of his mouth. As Yueying’s breath caught in her throat and the air in her lungs threatened to strangle her, Lord Cao _laughed_. A rich, deep sound, resounding in its sincerity. Yueying stared.

“Ah, that is a line I must remember to use when Wenyuan,” Zhang Liao, Yueying remembered, the Lord Chancellor of Wei, “berates me for something or another that I should have done. I will tell him that he is supposed to simply blindly follow my orders, because he has chosen to serve me.” He waved a hand in the air, the movement large enough to set his sleeve fluttering in the creeping breeze.

“I should tell Yunchang that as well. Perhaps that will convince him that he should be an obedient wife, waiting for my orders and permission instead of acting in accordance to the honour and integrity that I married him for.”

When Yueying continued staring at him, speechless, Lord Cao chuckled again, shaking his head. He leaned forward, resting his elbow on the edge of the table before dropping his chin on his open palm. It was, Yueying thought, a posture she had not ever imagined a lord capable of using, especially in front of one who was still his prisoner.

“Come now, Lady Huang,” Lord Cao said. “Have you never realised how absolutely _exhausting_ it must be to give orders for even the most minute matters?” He cocked his head to the side. “To be enraged by even the smallest impieties and discourtesies?”

Yueying lowered her eyes again. “Forgive this lowly one’s ignorance,” she said. “She has never been in a position where she could learn such illuminating matters of the world.”

Perhaps she was testing the sincerity of Lord Cao’s words. Perhaps she simply could not help herself. Yueying did not know: the Alpha seated in front of her had a form that she could see clearly, yet he seemed to be shrouded in so much mist that it had crept around the table to wrap itself around her, sinking through her skin and travelling up her nerves.

But her mind was still clear.

“True enough,” Lord Cao said, admitting that Yueying was correct with another casual wave of a hand. He picked up another white stone, turning it over and over between two fingers before he continued, “If offered an opportunity to learn, will you take it?” 

Exerting all of her effort to ensure that her hands did not tremble, Yueying picked up her tea. It tasted of fresh, green leaves; completely unlike the over-roasted smokiness that she had been drinking for the past weeks here in Xuchang. “My lord, this lowly one is far too stupid to grasp your meaning,” she mumbled from behind the porcelain.

“No,” Lord Cao said. He placed the white piece down in a square very close to Yueying’s side of the board. His sleeve brushed over the other stones, the touch so light that they did not shift at all. “I believe that you understand me perfectly, Lady Huang.”

“Why _me_?” she whispered. Why not Kongming, whose stratagems had been so praised and prized by Lord Liu that he now owned the reputation of a prodigy? Why not Lady Sun, who could serve as either hostage or ally in Lord Cao’s eventual war against Eastern Wu? Why not Ladies Mi and Li, both of whom had fitted themselves so well to the role of a wife?

“Haven’t I already said?” Lord Cao’s mirth was now tinged with amusement, and he sighed as he shook his head. “ _You_ proved my strategists wrong. Even when you had to work in secret, even when there was no glory to be gain by acting, you managed to extended a two-week long siege into one that lasted four times as long.”

He tapped his fingers on the side of the board. “That is an achievement,” he said. “That is _talent_.” He smiled, sharp-edged at the corners. “I prefer those who own strong talent to serve me, so that their raw ore could be refined into steel instead of being buried underground, useful for naught but food for the worms.”

Slowly, deliberately, Yueying placed her cup back down on top of the table. Her fingers did not tremble as she picked up a black stone, placing it on the board. Without lifting her eyes from Lord Cao, she started to replace his white stones with her own dark ones. “Have you made the same offer to the other wives, my Lord?” she asked.

The Alpha hummed under his breath, as if he was actually giving her question deep consideration. “With my own hands and the blades of my generals, I have crafted a country that is now besieged by war.” He dipped one of those hands into the bowl of white stones, making them click against each other. “Ore can be melted down into iron, which can then be formed into swords that would protect my borders.” He scooped up five stones before letting them fall, one by one, back into the bowl.

“What use have I for a few pieces of finished porcelain, already painted over?” He cocked his head to the side, and the mirth in his eyes had turned sharp and mocking. “What use have I for a cracked ceramic bowl, no matter its nostalgic history?”

Yueying stilled. Dragging in a deep breath, she drew her hands back, and folded them into her sleeves.

“You have forgotten, Lady Huang: I _have_ met Liu Bei’s wives before,” Lord Cao continued. “Them, and his little concubine as well.” __  
  
“This lowly one apologises for her lapse,” Yueying murmured in reply. “But she would like to remind Lord Cao that porcelain and ceramic come from the ground as well.” She paused, and tapped her nails against the rim of her teacup. “Furthermore, Lord Cao might disdain them, but they each have their own function and necessity, even if not those that can be used to defend the borders of a country.”

“Yet that is what I require,” Lord Cao pointed out.

Spreading out her hands, Yueying met those dark eyes. “You said that swords are what needed for your country’s defence, yet these hands have never held one. These wrists have been judged from birth to be too weak to ever hold the weight of a blade.” She paused. She did not thrust her chin out; she knew she did not need to, with this particular Alpha. “You praised me for my efforts in keeping the people of Weiling fed, but is that not the domain of porcelain and ceramic instead of steel blades?”

“Talent,” Lord Cao said, every word slow and deliberate, “can be noted from deeds performed. But it can be far more mouldable than sense of the self that has been carved into stone.” 

“I thought we were speaking of steel and porcelain and ceramic,” Yueying said, her own lips curving up into a smile so wide and sharp that she was baring her teeth. “Have you chosen to give up on the metaphors you have chosen, my lord?”

Lord Cao lowered his eyes to the board. He placed his white stone on a square that could be easily overtaken by Yueying’s black stones the moment she made a move. “Are you arguing for the lives of the wives of Shu, Lady Huang,” he asked quietly, “or for your own death?”

“Neither,” Yueying returned promptly. Speaking with Lord Cao was easier, she realised, than even with Kongming. There was danger, certainly, but there was no need for obfuscating, no necessity for obscurity. “I am arguing for the sake of fair-handedness and consistency.” She swept her hand over the bowl of white stones, letting the edge of her sleeve brush the polished surfaces. 

“Or, in the terms my lord prefers: for the sake of honour and integrity.” 

She could see the moment when her words sank in: Lord Cao paused, his entire body going rigid and still. His presence, which had filled the room the moment he had walked in, seemed to shrink slightly as his brows furrowed in thought. Yueying picked up a white stone, and placed it right where he had given her the opening to possibly snatch a win for her out of this game of theirs.

“Rarely have there been one who could turn my very words against me,” he murmured finally. Reaching out, he replaced his own white stones with Yueying’s black ones, his shoulders starting to tremble with the beginning of laughter. “Rarer are those who would dare while my blade hovers so close to their throats.”

“Perhaps that is the virtue of porcelain and ceramic,” Yueying said. When Lord Cao raised an eyebrow at her, she shrugged. “What need is there to fear a fall, when a life has been spent in terror of being broken by careless hands?”

“You will still name yourself porcelain even when your every word proves you to be steel?” Lord Cao asked.

“I am but what I have been made by my birth and station in life,” Yueying replied. “You look at me and see steel, my lord, but in truth I am ceramic that has already been shattered, and I have learned to use the edges of those broken pieces to cut whenever I can.” She drew back her hands. “That is the only choice left for porcelain and ceramic, for we are judged from birth to be too weak to touch steel.” 

“Not the only choice,” Lord Cao said, shaking his head. He picked up four white stones and bounced them in his hand, the quiet click of them bumping against each other filling the silence of the room. “They could choose to be swept away and buried instead.”

Yueying blinked. 

“When I said that _I_ have no use for the wives of Shu, I did not speak for Wei, but merely myself. My Empress had a different mind.” Yueying barely managed to stifle her gasp into a silent hitch of breath. “The Ladies Mi and Li, the Lady Sun, and even Liu Bei’s little concubine have all been offered a chance to live by Yunchang.” He lifted his head, and met Yueying’s gaze. His smile was terribly dark, terribly wry.

“All except one have chosen instead to die.” When Yueying continued to stare at him, wide-eyed and silent, he gave her an impatient cluck of the tongue. “It’s the little concubine. Qilan, her name is? The one Yunchang still calls _sao-zi_.”

Qilan had been given a chance to live. Qilan’s gamble, made ten years ago now, had come true: General Guan _remembered_ , and he had gathered enough power in his wrists to drag her away from the edge of the abyss of death. All of the pain and humiliation that Qilan had suffered through, all that she had endured… General Guan might never know any of it, might not understand even if he did, but he still remembered, and he had come to offer her a lifeline.

Yueying stood. The scrape of her chair’s legs beat against her ears as she scrambled to drop to her knees, falling forward until her hands were flat against the floor and her forehead was touching the cold stone.

“This lowly servant gives her deep thanks to the Emperor and Empress of Wei for their kindness.” Not just General Guan, but Lord Cao as well. What power would General Guan have, after all, if Lord Cao was not the kind of man who would grant his Empress the freedom to do as he desired, no matter that it went against his own wishes? 

Above her, Lord Cao made a sound, a twisted thing half-strangled by both mirth and exasperation. “When I offer you your life, you throw sharp-tongued poison into my face,” he said. “Yet _now_ you prostrate yourself before me.” Yueying stayed silent: she had given enough of herself away that a man as clearly intelligent as he was could grasp the situation without any other explanation.

Sure enough: “ _Ah_ ,” Lord Cao said, a moment later. Strangely enough, he did not sound confused or sceptical; only wondering. “Is that why you have not asked if your husband has chosen death as well?”

“No,” Yueying whispered. “I do not ask, my lord, for I already know his choice.”

If the Ladies Mi and Li, who had suffered so much at the hands of those with whom they would now hurtle towards death, would refuse a new, different life, then what more would Kongming choose? Kongming, who always had the chance to take what he desired; Kongming, who had always willingly stood frozen to allow the threads of his pride to wind around his body until he could not even turn his head to look at the other paths he could take in his life, would never choose anything but death.

Her heart grieved for him. She grieved, too, for Lady Li, who seemed to have spent so much time as General Zhang’s wife that she could no longer think of herself any other way; that she had learned to fear the mist-shrouded, unknown path that led away from him even more than she feared him.

Perhaps Yueying should be the same way. She, who would always be more well-known as Kongming’s wife than by any of her own deeds, should follow the examples of Lady Jiang and Lady Bo, obeying the rules and precepts passed down through the years. Perhaps she should be like Lady Mi, too, who had surely chosen to die because then she had a chance, however slim, of being remembered by history for her piety and loyalty to her husband.

But Yueying had learned selfishness from Alphas. If choosing to live meant that she – and her father – would be forever forgotten for rejecting the ideals of her world instead of living up to them, then so be it. If she would be left as a starving ghost doomed to roam the world in her afterlife, then so be it. She would use the memories of joy by Qilan’s side to sustain herself. She would use the memories of having her worth acknowledged to fill her stomach.

She would gamble an eternity of misery for lifetime of happiness. Better that than to submit to misery for the sake of becoming an example that would drown the later generations in suffering.

“Well?” Lord Cao asked, impatience once more twining tight in his voice. “What is your answer?”

Unfolding herself, Yueying stood. She approached the table, looking at the board. _There_ , that one square: she picked up a black stone, and placed it there. She kept her eyes lowered as Lord Cao hummed in contemplation; as he put down his own white stone and, slowly, switched the others until white covered the entire board with only a few spots of black remaining.

Then Yueying stepped back. As Lord Cao tilted his head up to look at her, she bowed. Not with her hands on her hip, as she was used to, but with her fist slapping against her palm, the smack of skin and skin loud.

“This lowly officer,” she said, voice ringing loud and clear, “pays her respect to His Majesty, the Emperor of Wei, and offers him her service.”

Cloth whispered as Lord Cao stood. “Even now,” he said, “you set the conditions of your submission.” The insides of his hands were smooth as he rested them on top of hers. When she lifted her eyes to meet his through the veil of her hair, she saw that he was smirking.

“Yes,” he said. “I think Yunchang would like to test if those hands of yours are _truly_ too weak to hold a sword.” He closed his hand tightly enough to grind her bones together, but Yueying refused to make a sound.

“At least, I hope he will.” There were sharp edges in his laughter and knives half-hid between his lips. “I certainly look forward to seeing it.”

But there was, too, enough warmth in both to melt the steel threads still holding the broken pieces of Yueying’s self together. Melting and reforming, forging and welding her into something, some _one,_ new entirely. 

“I accept,” Lord Cao said, “your service.”

* * *

Excerpt taken from _Scholar’s Son, Strategist: A Biography of Zhuge Liang_ , by Xin Weike and Li Jing, pp. 176-80, published in 1991 by the Oxford University Press.

**Appendix: A Note on the Historical Sources Used**

Throughout this book, three main sources of information have been used: Chen Shuo's _Records_ (1), Pei Songzhi's _Annotations_ (2) (considered a separate source due to the various inconsistencies and controversies surrounding Pei's additions), and the obsidian tablets found in Zhang Liao’s tomb, _Reports_ , (3) supposedly written by Sima Yi. While the authors have briefly touched on the various biases contained within these sources, the dubious veracity of these sources when it comes to Shu will be discussed in-depth in this portion of the book. 

Firstly, we must answer the most important question of why these texts were chosen as key sources for this book, given how their authors were all enemies of Shu. The reason is simple: there are no remaining sources that originate from Shu itself. Shu was the smallest and shortest-lived kingdom of the three, considered to have officially existed for only one year in 209 before its defeat by Wei and the execution of all of its leaders. As the only other sources that remain are folklores, myths, and legends from the south of Jingzhou (present-day western, north-western, and south-western Hunan), historians attempting to study the figures of Shu have no choice but to rely on historical records written by those belonging to Cao Wei and Sima Jin.

[…] 

The obsidian tablets – numbering six hundred and twelve in total – bearing the _Reports on the Formation of Cao Wei_ was found in 1699, during the Qing Emperor Kangxi’s rule in what has been confirmed to be Zhang Liao’s tomb on Lo Island, Hebei. (4) Assuming that they were truly written by Sima Yi during Cao Cao’s rule of Wei, then the possible biases that the sources contain should be clear. […]

As mentioned previously, there are no found records that originate from Shu itself. However, several notes in Pei Songzhi’s _Annotations_ indicate that these sources once existed. In the volume named _Records of Shu_ (蜀記 _Shuji_ ), he wrote, “Unlike Zhuge Liang’s claims in his records, Shu cannot be said to exist from the time Liu Bei gathered his army to fight against the Yellow Turbans.” Later on, when writing about the Battles of Chibi, Pei Songzhi wrote, “Lady Sun of Wu could not have served as a spy against the Grand Progenitor’s army during the beginning of the battles. Apocryphal myths should not be credited as history, no matter the arrogance of the title.”

For centuries, historians puzzled over these two lines. Only when _Reports_ were found, nearly a millennium after Pei Songzhi completed his work, was the mystery solved. In the volume titled “The Fall of Shu,” the author wrote: “The Grand Progenitor ordered for _The Official History of Shu_ , by Chief Strategist of Shu, Zhuge Liang, to be copied and stored in the great libraries of Wei.” In a later volume, named “First Invasions Against Eastern Wu,” the author wrote, “[...] along reports on the state of the common people living under Sun Quan’s rule, Wu Ming (5) sent a series of volumes, named _Biographies of the Wives of Shu._ The Empress wept after reading, and ordered for them to be copied and stored.”

Both of these records are lost today, but evidently not in the Liu Song dynasty, as they were well-known enough for Pei Songzhi to have made special mentions of them. The loss of these volumes is particularly regrettable, for they seem to be the only original sources regarding life in Shu that have ever been written. However, their titles can be analysed for what little that can give us regarding Shu itself.

_The Official History of Shu_ and _Biographies of the Wives of Shu_ share one obvious commonality: both titles reference the great classics of Chinese history that are well-known even in the time of the Three Kingdoms. The original title of the first, _Shushigong shu_ (蜀史公書), is a mirror of _Taishigong shu_ (太史公書, more commonly known as _Shiji_ (史記) _,_ Sima Qian’s monumental history of China from the time of the Yellow Emperor in antiquity to Emperor Wu of the Han dynasty. Assuming that the text exists and was authored by Zhuge Liang, then the reference is most likely an attempt to elevate major figures of Shu to the level of the great figures of history as recorded in _Shiji_. _Biographies of the Wives of Shu_ , _Shuli zhuan_ (蜀俪傳) similarly follows the same title format as the famous _Lieli zhuan_ (列俪傳), a series of biographies of wives who strictly adhered to Confucian ideals and traditions compiled by the Han dynasty scholar Liu Xiang.

Given the high hopes implied in the titles, it seems likely that both texts are attempts to elevate figures of Shu into role models that exemplify the same Confucian ideals and traditions that Sima Qian and Liu Xiang’s texts do. The irony, thus, is that their loss has not prevented the achievement of their objectives. In fact, the loss might have added to it: Liu Guanzhong might not have as much room to lionize figures of Shu in his epic _Romance of the Three Kingdoms_ if these two texts had lasted until his time. Imagination, after all, is greatly limited by truth.

[…]

(1) 三國志, _Sanguozhi, Records of the Three Kingdoms,_ published in 289, during the Jin dynasty.

(2) 三國志注, _Sanguozhi zhu_ , _Annotations to the Records of the Three Kingdoms,_ completed in 428, during the Liu Song Dynasty.

(3) 曹魏建業書, _Cao Wei jiangye shu, Reports on the Formation of Cao Wei_ , date of publication or completion unknown. 

(4) The tablets were found in a section of the tomb close to the two coffins. Above them were the following words, carved into stone: “In life, the Imperial Chancellor was trusted with Wei’s future. In death, the Chancellor’s husband trusts him with its history, for he has always loved him for his devotion to duty.” Those words along with the burial items confirmed the bodies in the tomb to be Zhang Liao and his husband, Xiahou Dun. 

(5) Wu Ming (吳明) is a figure mentioned only once in that instance and never again in _Reports_. Theories about their identity range from their being a commoner in Xuchang turned into a spy, to Zhuge Liang himself (undoubtedly due to the ‘ming’ in the name that is the same as that in ‘Kongming’). The most prevalent theory, originating from folklore, that it is the spy is Lady Huang, Zhuge Liang’s wife, whose personal name was not recorded in history. She is commonly known by her placeholder name of Huang Qiyu (奇玉, miraculous jade). Many operas have been made regarding her meeting with Cao Cao after Shu’s fall and her agreement to spy on Eastern Wu for him in return for her life; stories that are entirely unsupported by official texts of the time.

_End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The historical note is, as per usual, written with a _lot_ of help from Niney.
> 
> This thing has taken me two months or so to write. That’s one of the longest periods of time I have ever spent on one fic, especially one that is less than a hundred thousand words. I am also very unsure if it is any good at all. Please give me validation via comments.

**Author's Note:**

> Please feed the starving author comments.


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